You're vital to your communities' economic health
16 Dec, 2008 By: Ron Hall Athletic Turf News
If you manage local parks and sports fields you're more important to the communities that you serve than most of you realize. Sport, especially youth sport, is not just strictly for fun anymore; it's a revenue producer for many communities, often generating enough in user fees and concessions to fund future park expansions or improvements. It can also pump substantial amounts of cash into local economies.
Beyond that the condition and the programs centering around a community's parks and sports fields are perceived as indications of a community's vitality and economic well being.
This is one of the things I learned on a visit to Pacesetter Park in Sylvania, OH, this past season. This 135-acre site, in addition to serving local citizens and amateur athletes (young and not-so-young) with excellent facilities, hosts large regional youth sports tournaments annually, soccer and baseball. Thousands of young athletes compete in these tournaments and, of course, they come with parents, grandparents and siblings. Because these tournaments typically last several days, visitors stay at local hotels, eat at local restaurants and shop at local retail establishments.
It's the responsibility of Brian Hall, facilities and maintenance director, to manage Pacesetter and other local parks, overseeing a $800,000 budget in the process and providing a huge service to one of the nicest communities in Northwest Ohio.
Sylvania is one of many progressive U.S. communities that see the link between excellent sports facilities and the importance of these facilities in prompting a vibrant community spirit -- and, increasingly, economic gain.
Multiplier effect in Dothan, AL
This past year city officials in Dothan, AL, voted to spend $8.1 million for improvements to its parks, including building new sports fields. Included in that figure is the $1.67 million to acquire an additional 87 acres of land for a new park in the southwest corner of the city of 65,000. The city's visitor's bureau estimates the economic and tax impact arising from visiting teams to its facilities at $2.85 million annually. And this is without applying any multiplier effect, which would increase the economic boost substantially, the Dothan Eager newspaper reported.
The city of Auburndale, FL, in August broke ground on a new 250-acre park with a $14.5 million price tag. The park will have eight soccer fields (including a 1,500-seat stadium), nine baseball fields and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. The Lake Myrtle Sports Complex project, financed by tourist tax dollars, is expected to pump an additional $50 million into the local economy, according to an article appearing in the Lakeland (FL) Ledger.
Boosting property values
Crown Point, a city in the far northwest corner of Indiana, is working on a $15-million, 70-acre sports project to expand an\ existing park within the city. The project will add football, baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball and soccer facilities. The city is looking at incorporating environmentally friendly features into the park, including solar power and a system to recapture rainwater to irrigation the fields. Promoters of the project say it will be financially self-sustaining, and will raise property values in surrounding neighborhoods. The city's parks and recreation department will maintain the park.
A magnet for tournaments
And what county wouldn't mind an additional $51 million spent by visitors within its borders each year? That's the amount that the Space Coast Office of Tourism says is spent by traveling teams and their supporters spend in Brevard County, FL, each year as they participate in sporting events such as baseball and softball tournaments. Most of this activity is concentrated in the summer months, the slow tourist season in coastal Florida, which is another win for the region.
Rob Varley, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism, said that the sports business and traveling teams generate conservatively about 150,000 room nights a year in the county, a significant amount of tourism business, in a recent article in Florida Today.
Overland Park's soccer plans
And finally, Overland Park, this fall announced a $35-million project to build new 12-field soccer complex, with funding coming from an increase in hotel and liquor tax increases, and user fees. The city said it had already booked 19 tournaments, generating $402,000 in fees, for the facility, which is expected to open in September 2009.
To make their facilities a destination that attracts the sporting crowd season after season, local officials must keep user fees reasonable, 0negotiate special deals at local hotels and other businesses for visitors, and offer or promote other exciting local attractions.
None of this will matter, however, if the sports fields and supporting facilities (rest rooms, parking, concession stands, etc.) don't meet expectations of local users. And certainly visiting teams and their families and friends won't be showing up if these facilities don't meet their expectations.
Responsible park and sports field managers provide great enjoyment for their citizens, visitors and are vital to the economic and social health of the communities they serve, in most cases more important to their communities than they realize.
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.