Research: Niagara needs sports commission
Niagara needs a co- ordinated grassroots effort to bring events to local sports venues — an organization not unlike the now defunct Niagara Sport Commission.
Such an organization also needs to consider more than just the economic impact an event might bring to the region, and it shouldn’t only focus on the “mega- events” because the smaller ones are sometimes just as beneficial.
Those were some of the conclusions included in a policy brief released Wednesday by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory, which teamed up with the university’s centre for sports capacity director Julie Stevens and sports management master’s student Chris Charlebois on a study researching how the impact of sports events held throughout Niagara are measured.
Stevens said she hopes the study, called More Than Money: Leveraging the Benefits of Sport Hosting in Niagara, will start a conversation with key stakeholders including government, commercial and not- for- profit sectors about how to enhance the region’s efforts to lure sports events.
Although Niagara has been successful in attracting large sports events through lobbying and bids, Stevens told an audience of more than 60 municipal, sports and business group representatives that a “strategic and united strategy would be far more effective.”
“Some people in the room probably are aware that there used to be a Niagara Sport Commission in the region,” she said, while crediting Niagara’s successful 2021 Canada Summer Games bid to the group that was disbanded in November due to a lack of stable funding.
“Its philosophy and its purpose is still needed, and it’s left a bit of a vacuum … We need something like that in Niagara to kind of keep the momentum for us and the kinds of opportunities that it brings.”
The university invited St. Catharines regional Coun. Tim Rigby, past- president of the Canadian Amateur Rowing Association; Sue Morin from Venture Niagara and formerly from Niagara Sport Commission, and Regional Chair Alan Caslin for a panel discussion on the research.
Caslin said the Region has “stepped up to bridge the gap” after the sports commission disbanded. He said Niagara’s economic development office has a fund that could form the basis of what’s needed for a sports commission.
“It’s not a large sum, but it’s a consistent sum,” Caslin said.
Audience member Doug Geddie, who is leading the recently announced bid for the 2020 Brier men’s national curling championship, said any new organization should be independent.
He said many national sports organizations he has worked with aren’t interested in talking to a government- run sports commission, preferring instead to work with grassroots volunteer organizations.
Following the meeting, former sports commission chairman Henry D’Angela said establishing an organization to replace the commission will require the Region “to play a larger role and it’s going to cost them more money to re- instate that program.”
“I would be opposed to seeing it become a department of the Region,” said the Thorold regional councillor. “I don’t think that’s where it should be sitting.”
Charlebois, whose research was based on surveys conducted by members of Niagara Sports Commission, said economic impact has often been the focus when gauging the success of sports events, but it can be prone to problems.
For instance, he said, “You have event organizers that may inflate the numbers and therefore report a higher economic impact as a means to justify … government or other investments into their projects.”
The research, Charlebois added, was also an effort to find a “more holistic approach” to determining benefits sporting events can bring to a community.
“We’re trying to look at a more comprehensive way to look at this,” he said.
He said the impact smaller events can have on the community should not be overlooked.
“While large- scale events are very important for us to host, we need to take a balanced approach and make sure that we focus just as much, if not in some cases more attention to the smaller events, because their collective impact can sometimes outweigh that of a large- scale event.”
Charlebois said four smaller events “that required little or no investment” had pretty much the same impact as hosting curling’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts, held at Meridian Centre last year.
Stevens later added that to “add up all our small sports events that clubs and associations run in an annual cycle, you’re getting up into the thousands of athletes that do come and they are from out of town.” abenner@ postmedia. com twitter. com/ abenner1