Cactus League visitors big spenders in Valley
Out-of-state fans attending spring training baseball games this year pumped $373 million into the Arizona economy from late February through March, researchers at Arizona State University report. The typical visitor attended three games, stayed four nights and spent a median of $405 per day.
Many spring training baseball fans made a mini vacation out of watching their favorite teams play around the Valley earlier this year.
The typical Cactus League visitor attended three games, stayed four nights in Arizona and spent a median, or midpoint, $405 per day, according to new information provided by Arizona State University researchers.
Six in 10 fans came from out of state, and one in four visited other parts of the state while they were in town.
Collectively, baseball fans from out of state pumped an estimated $373 million into Arizona’s economy from late February through the end of March, according to the more conservative of two Cactus League impact studies, both released by Arizona State University researchers on Monday.
This year’s 231 spring-training games, involving 15 Major League Baseball teams at 10 metro-Phoenix stadiums, attracted 1,774,978 fans, an average of roughly 7,700 spectators per game. Total Cactus League attendance, including two games played in Las Vegas, reached 1,796,403 million fans.
The economic-impact estimate from ASU’s L. William Seidman Research Institute was extrapolated from self-reported spending surveys completed by 3,900 fans.
Food and drinks purchased at bars and restaurants represented the largest spending total by out-of-state visitors, at $123 million, followed by hotel rooms and other lodging accommodations at $90 million.
Other significant components included souvenirs/gifts ($35 million), groceries ($22 million) and car rentals ($12 million). The study didn’t include the amount of estimated spending by the legions of sports media covering the games. Also, it didn’t include airfares, focusing instead on money spent within the state.
The study estimated that spring training created the equivalent of 6,400jobs on an annual basis, though most Cactus League workers were employed no more than a few weeks.
The broader ASU study estimated the league’s economic impact at $644 million but included some double-counting of the numbers, said Dennis Hoffman, director of the Seidman Research Institute.
For example, while the conservative study included only final restaurant sales, the broader study might also include the sale of supplies from a wholesaler to a restaurant.
In other words, the $644-million figure reflects “total output” from all Cactus League transactions, while the impact in final goods and services was $373 million.
The broader format is similar to how various other sporting events estimate their economic impact, and it provides some comparability to a 2015 Cactus League report that estimated spring baseball pumped $544 million into Arizona’s economy that year.
The 2018 figure of $644 million represented an 11 percent increase, after adjusting for inflation, compared to 2015. The Cactus League didn’t estimate its economic impact in 2016 or 2017.