The sports event economy
Spending to attract competitions, conferences and meetings tops $3B, with the sports tourism industry producing a tax impact of $6.6B.
NEXT MONTH’S NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four in Phoenix is projected to generate nearly 23,000 room nights, with an average daily rate of $359, and national TV exposure. This summer’s USA Fencing National Championships and July Challenge in Columbus is a twoweek event that won’t provide much ticket tax revenue or national media exposure, but will generate nearly 14,000 room nights. The BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon near Salt Lake City earlier this month, with competitors from about two dozen countries, gave the area some international exposure before it hopes to host the 2034 Winter Olympics. Thousands of other sporting events of every size from every discipline imaginable all have something in common: Money was invested to attract the event, and the hosts will make every effort to recover those costs from the event’s visitors.
Event organizer and venue spending on tournament operations amounted to $3.7 billion, according to the most recent State of the Industry report by Sports ETA, Longwoods International, U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics. On the other end, the sports tourism sector generated a direct fiscal tax impact of $6.6 billion in 2021, the most recent data available from biennial survey. Both of those figures are expected to be dwarfed when 2023 data is released this spring.
“Sports really got the whole tourism industry through the last four years,” said John David, president and CEO of the Sports Events & Tourism Association. “And now destinations are understanding what the long-term impacts sports tourism can really mean for a community and they’re jumping into it fullheartedly. So it’s just a great time right now.”
This year, SBJ’s Best Sports Business Cities takes a different approach from our inaugural list last year, in which we examined the overall sports business climate in each larger metropolitan area. The 2024 franchise takes a deep dive into the event hosting space (see Methodology, Page 19).
After months of analyzing the data from destination marketing organizations, event owners and other stakeholders, we found Orlando’s ability to attract and host events outpaced the other NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS and Major League Baseball cities (see story, Page 20). Among cities without such a franchise, Fort Worth, Texas, rose to the top (see story, Page 40).
EVENT HOSTING TRENDS
▶ FUNDING: Eleven of the 22 states that have a fund or grant to help DMOs attract and/or operate sporting events launched their fund post-pandemic. Additionally, the Minnesota House Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee on March 6 held over a bill to appropriate $6 million in fiscal year 2025 to Minnesota Sports and Events for costs related to hosting the 2026 World Junior Hockey Championship. The organization has received one-time funding from the state in the past (see chart below).
While lodging taxes make up well more than half of the industry’s overall DMO funding, they can be a deterrent to smaller organizations. Hotel guests in St. Louis, for example, get hit with 25.15% in lodging taxes, the highest total in the country, according to industry analyst HVS.
▶ NEW AND IMPROVED VENUES:
Between 2019 and 2023, $35.8 billion was spent in sports venue construction, with $37.8 billion more in the pipeline. Additionally, more than $11 billion in construction at convention centers is ongoing or has been approved. Seventeen of our top 25 cities have used their convention centers for a sporting event since 2017, as the open spaces are ideal for events such as fencing, table tennis, gymnastics and others.
▶ MARKETING STRATEGIES: DMOs also are marketing their sports chops nationally, rather than simply chasing requests for proposals. Visit Las Vegas, for example, spent $4.8 million advertising during nationally televised sports programming last year. In fact, 27 DMOs advertised during a college bowl game last season. Discover South Carolina, the state’s tourism agency, created a national marketing campaign to lure golfers after it announced last April that it had signed a five-year, $12.5 million marketing agreement to become an official tourism sponsor of the PGA Tour.
The cities in SBJ’s first Best Sports Business Cities: Event Hosting, profiled in the pages ahead, represent the continuum of event-hosting skills, from those that focus almost exclusively on the limited number of megaevents like the Super Bowl, Final Fours and WrestleMania, to others that thrive on a constant flow of amateur tournaments; from cities that have strong, well-financed DMOs to others that depend on area teams and venues to bring tourists to town.
SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL’S 2024 Best Sports Business Cities franchise focuses on the U.S. cities that have had the most recent success at attracting and hosting sporting events.
SBJ built a database of 1,500 events that have taken place and/or been awarded since Jan. 1, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2023. What was counted:
▶ Roughly 85% of the events are typically put out to bid by the rights holders to have cities compete to host them. Our database includes every NCAA Division I, II and III postseason bid through its current cycle that ends in 2026; every NCAA basketball Final Four awarded through 2031; NAIA championships through 2024; and events held/awarded by all 50 U.S. Olympic governing bodies (37 summer sports, eight winter, five Pan American sports).
▶ Cities received credit for being the home to permanent events (i.e. Indianapolis 500, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and U.S. Open Tennis Championships).
▶ All-star games, annual drafts and other tentpole events for every major league and FBS/ FCS college conference.
▶ Major events/tournaments staged by national youth sports organizations.
▶ Approximately 180 industry business-to-business meetings, from league/conference offseason meetings to all SBJ conferences.
Transient (bid-upon) events made up around 88% of those considered. Colleges made up 30% of events tracked, NGBs 25%, meetings 12%, youth/ international/other 21%, with the other 12% being permanent events.
Each event was weighted on a scale of 1-10, with an event such as the Super Bowl being a 10 and an event that has few spectators and minimal media exposure being a 1. The 50 Olympic national governing bodies provided a tiered designation for their events.
The aggregation of this data was then indexed against primary economic metrics that are important to the rights holders — hotel and meal costs; lodging taxes; travel time from the airport to the event venue(s). The food and beverage figures are the 2024 federal per diem rate determined by the U.S. General Services Administration for approximately 2,600 U.S. counties. Agencies use the per diem rates to reimburse their employees for subsistence expenses incurred while on official travel.
Cities received credit for building new/renovating existing sports venues.
Finally, markets gained/lost points based on positive/negative sentiment received from the more than 30 sports industry veterans with extensive event travel experience that SBJ contacted for insights/opinions. These conversations elicited an oft-repeated mantra: Hosting events is a people-based industry. The participants, stakeholders and attendees all need to feel as if the event belongs in the specific market, even if only for that one brief period.
DIFFERENCE FROM PREVIOUS LIST
Because this effort is focused on event hosting, some ingredients from the methodology of the inaugural BSBC in 2023 are less of a factor or not a factor at all. The presence of sponsors’ headquarters, for example, and attendance at the permanent teams/events are excluded. Nonevent tourist options (or lack of), such as a nearby entertainment district, amusement park, golf courses, etc., are factored in.
Additionally, sports travel representatives told us that event visitors are more likely to land at the airport and head to the event venue or hotel, rather than spend days driving around or navigating public transportation making sales calls. As a result, there were fewer deductions for negatives like traffic congestion and having a spreadout geographic footprint.
SEPARATING CITIES IN THE SAME MARKET
Based on feedback from the sports tourism sector, this year’s BSBC dug deeper into the markets. Last year, we used the U.S. Census Metropolitan Statistical Area as the designations. Rights holders and sports commission representatives told us that the Dallas-Fort Worth sports event market, for example, is four distinct entities competing with one another over RFPs.
Multiple industry executives suggested this rule of thumb: If a city has its own convention space and/or sports venue and a sports commission or convention and visitors bureau staff that is specifically tasked with luring sporting events to that specific town, then we should consider it to be a stand-alone market.
As a result, Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Frisco — each of which has its own sports commission and convention center that wins sports requests for proposals — are now considered separately, as are Miami and Fort Lauderdale; Los Angeles and Anaheim; and Tampa and St. Petersburg.
WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED
▶ Estimated impact of an event — economic or otherwise. The industry tells us there is no standard to measure this.
▶ Weather-related issues or on-the-field performance.
ORGANIZATION
We’ve organized them as such:
▶ Top 25 Cities
▶ Top 15 Cities without a team from a Big Five league (MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL and NHL)
▶ 10 Ones To Watch: Cities that are starting to win bids they would not have won a few years ago.
“UNBELIEVABLY REAL,” the slogan rolled out in 2022 by Visit Orlando and the Orlando Economic Partnership seeking to market the region as a destination of escapism mixed with natural beauty, could also sum up the city’s ability to host almost any sporting event or conference while making attendees feel as if they are in the happiest place on Earth.
Orlando’s evolution as an event host began in earnest in 1994, when it beat out Miami and Tampa for the right to host five FIFA World Cup matches. The games were played at the Citrus Bowl (now called Camping World Stadium), which has been around since 1936. The event ignited a soccer spark in the area, to be sure: The city has since attracted dozens of international matches, is home to Orlando City SC and the Orlando Pride and their soccer-specific stadium, and the U.S. Soccer women’s national team spring training camp. In fact, the USWNT is 18-0 all-time in Orlando.
The opening in 1997 of the 220-acre ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex changed not only Orlando’s sports DNA, but served as a model for mixed-use, multisport developments around the world. AAU even moved its headquarters from Indianapolis to the site. Now, more than 200 sporting events take place each year at the complex and elsewhere on Disney property, including last year’s American Flag Football Youth World Championships and multiple annual soccer, baseball, softball, cheer, tennis and golf tournaments. And when sports began to return in the summer of 2020, the NBA and MLS turned to the Disney site to create the “bubbles.”
The multisport strategy has worked well for the city. The 2022 Special Olympics USA Games, for example, brought in more than 4,000 athletes,1,500 coaches, and 20,000 families and fans from across the country. The events were held primarily at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, the YMCA Aquatic Center and the U.S. Tennis Association campus in Lake Nona.
Additionally, the NCAA Division II Spring Championships Festival will return to the area in May, 20 years after the community hosted the inaugural event. Six D-II national championships are hosted: men’s and women’s golf (at Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge); men’s and women’s tennis (Sanlando Park); softball (Boombah-Soldiers Creek Park); and women’s lacrosse (Showalter Stadium). The Greater Orlando Sports Commission, which handled the bid to host the festival, is projecting that the event will generate 4,300 room nights.
It would be easy to assume that such a tourist-savvy city could almost just open the venue doors and tournaments would be clamoring to come to the Sunshine State.
Not so, said Jason Siegel, the sports commission’s president and CEO.
“Our partners in the event space are educated, savvy and sophisticated in their approach to booking business, and our competitors in other cities have leveled the playing field with aggressive incentive and funding models in addition to their investments into infrastructure and brand-new venues,” he said. “We have a strategic plan in place as a region to continue to provide incentives that drive an appropriate return on investment along with the world-class accommodations, state-of-the-art venues and once-in-alifetime opportunities and experiences that are organic to Orlando. We work diligently and collaboratively to maintain our competitive advantage.”
For example, NFL fans watching last month’s Pro Bowl Games saw two Visit Orlando spots run a total of eight times during the telecast. Both were part of the organization’s “Anything’s Possible” campaign. “The Adulting” spot highlighted the city’s nightlife and better-without-the-kids options; a second one showcased the theme parks.
The total ad buy of roughly $472,000 made up 55% of what the organization had spent advertising on national telecasts through March 10, according to iSpot.tv data.
The city is investing heavily in its sports future.
On Oct. 3, 2023, the county commissioners voted to approve allocating Tourist Development Tax funding for a $560 million expansion of the Orange County Convention Center. The venue just might host more sporting events than any other convention center in the country, and it hit an attendance record in 2023 with an estimated 1.58 million visitors.
The annual PGA Show, a gathering of more than 31,000 golf industry professionals, companies and brands from 89 countries, has been held there since 1985; and the venue hosts 500
ABOVE: Grave Digger went airborne during the 2019 Monster Jam World Finals at Camping World Stadium.
TOP RIGHT: Young fans rallied around the Orlando Pride’s Marta.
BELOW: Chris Nikic ignited the cauldron during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games. The event brought more than 25,000 athletes, coaches, families and fans to Orlando.
Pop Warner Cheer & Dance teams for a four-day event each year in partnership with Florida Citrus Sports.
The biggest event, however, is the 21-day AAU Junior National Volleyball Championships, whose eventrecord 5,400 teams and 100,000 participants in June generated a $256 million economic impact for the city. It was the largest sporting event ever held at the venue. Siegel said they are projecting that this summer’s tournament will produce a record 227,818 room nights. (For context, there are approximately 200,000 rental units in the market, including hotels, time shares, vacation rentals and shortterm rentals.)
In January, the county approved spending $400 million in tourism tax funds to renovate Camping World Stadium (home to several Pro Bowls, college football bowl games, the annual Pop Warner football national championships and other events) and $226 million to maintain and upgrade the Kia Center (which hosted last year’s NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball first and second rounds).
The city of Orlando owns the stadium, while Florida Citrus Sports controls the venue’s naming rights, corporate partnerships and premium seating revenue. Final data for 2023 was not available at press time, but the 20 events at Camping World Stadium in 2022 drew 921,623 fans, and generated 373,092 room nights, according to Steve Hogan, CEO of Florida Citrus Sports. Those events generated $43 million in state and local tax revenue.
While the major league and Division I college venues get most of the attention, the city’s hosting abilities have been bolstered in recent years by the opening of the $60 million USTA National Campus (which hosted last year’s NCAA Division I, II and III Men’s and Women’s Tennis Championships), which is spread across 60 acres. The 205-room Aloft Orlando Lake Nona opened there in January.
Additionally, “The Fortress” at Full Sail University is the country’s largest collegiate esports arena.
Finally, the city added a new accomplishment last month to its constantly evolving résumé: More than 100,000 spectators lined the downtown streets to watch the U.S. Olympic Marathon Team Trials … on the same day the NFL Pro Bowl Games was in town.