Southwest Indiana reaping benefits of sports tourism
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe USSSA Fast Pitch Great Lakes National Championships softball tournament wrapped up competition Saturday and demonstrated a growing impact of sports, particularly youth sports, in southwest Indiana.
The event featured games in Evansville, Newburgh, and Henderson, Kentucky, with Evansville alone seeing an estimated $2.4 million in economic impact from approximately 7,500 visitors.
City officials say a growing emphasis on sports tourism stems from the creation of the Evansville Regional Sports Commission in 2010 to attract not only youth sports, but high-profile collegiate events as well.
“It’s really about exposing the community in broader ways,” said Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke. “We know there’s going to be media exposure almost in every kind of [Ohio Valley Conference] event or NCAA event. I think our community has really rallied around these events, because they understand the importance of supporting these events.”
The Ford Center in Evansville has hosted the NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Championship Finals in four of the last five years; the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
The Deaconess Aquatic Center, which opened in 2021, has also created benefits for the city by landing the Great Lakes Valley Conference 2023 and 2024 Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships, as well as the 2025 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships.
“While Indianapolis has this great DI niche, we’ve developed a really successful niche for DII and in some cases, DIII at the NCAA level,” said Winnecke. “We’ve gotten really good at rolling out the red carpet, gotten really good at showing hospitality to student athletes to their supporters, their parents, their families. It’s just a great, great experience.”
Brandon McClish, who became executive director of the Evansville Regional Sports Commission in April, told IIB he saw the impact of the recent softball tournament on area businesses first hand.
“I had a coffee meeting [one] morning, and I waited in line for 20 minutes, which is perfect. I’m not saying as a negative, because there’s two full softball teams in there. And they’re coming in and staying at our hotels, eating at our restaurants.”
But as much business as an NCAA event brings, McClish said while youth sports may not get the same kind of national attention, they can still bring the same kind of impact on a more frequent basis.
That is why officials are planning the Warrick County Sports Complex, a $55 million, 230,000-square-foot multipurpose athletic facility that will include basketball and volleyball courts, and indoor track and field space, and full-size outdoor turf fields for a variety of sports, McClish said.
The project has already received a $5 million grant from the state’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI. McClish said the plan is to have the facility operational by 2025 with groundbreaking taking place in the next 60-90 days.
Winnecke said he believes the sky’s the limit when it comes to the types of events his city can host.
“I think there are all kinds of sporting events that we can host. I know what we’re comfortable doing. We need to start looking beyond just what we’re comfortable doing. And we need to continue to look at best practices,” he said. “We can’t rest on our laurels, and we have to keep our eyes peeled to what other great events might be out there.”
Since the Evansville Regional Sports Commission’s inception in 2010, the city has generated an estimated $30 million in economic impact, a number that is sure to continue growing.