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Sports tourism booms in Pinellas County
Since October, Pinellas County officials say the area has hosted more than 50 different sporting events that racked up $30M for the community. FOX 13’s Kailey Tracy reports.
ST PETERSBURG, Fla - Since October, Pinellas County has hosted 53 sporting events, generating $30 million in direct spending, according to Caleb Peterson, Director of the VSPC Sports Commission.
"You guys have all heard about some of the college softball that we’ve done," Peterson told the Tourist Development Council on Wednesday. "This year, we had two tournaments back-to-back, the NFCA and the ESPN softball tournaments. In those two events, we had 12 ranked teams that competed, including the number one and number two teams in the country," Peterson said. "It's just an example that the best teams in the country come to Clearwater to start their year."
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They’ve also hosted everything from sailing competitions to swimming, golf, bowling tournaments and more. The events have resulted in 51,000 room nights too, since October.
Courtesy: Pinellas County
The recent opening of the Sprowls Horizon Sports Park in Pinellas Park has provided a boost to the demand. The complex features six baseball diamonds, helping to alleviate a backlog of interest from organizers.
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"For years, we've had event organizers that are begging us for more fields because they've had waitlists for their tournaments," Peterson said.
However, local officials warn that the county faces stiff competition from neighbors. Nearby Pasco, Manatee and Hillsborough counties have invested in rectangular field complexes to accommodate sports like soccer, lacrosse and football.
What they're saying:
"It's a competitive space. We have the destination they're looking for, so, if I can just pull together the requisite number of fields, then it's generally been an easier sell," Peterson said.
That’s the hope for the former Toytown landfill site in St. Petersburg. The 235-acre plot represents a significant opportunity for development, though the project has been stalled for 25 years due to uncertainties regarding the environmental state of the land and the cost.
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"We've got a great piece of land in Toytown, but there's been a lot of developers that have looked at it over the last 25 years, and it's always kind of ended where they've been unsure of what's in the ground and what that ultimate cost is going to be, and that's what we're really trying to figure out," Peterson said.
They hope to get a report back on the land in early April that they’ll share with the developer, who will go back to the drawing board. Peterson said they hope to have a plan from the developer by the summer and make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners around October.
What's next:
In the meantime, the county is diversifying its portfolio by courting non-traditional sports like quidditch and cornhole.
"We're always working with these non-traditional sports and trying to find these niche markets that are going to have an impact and bring people to the destinations," Peterson said.
The region also recently secured a major international win. St. Petersburg was named the only North American stop for The Ocean Races, a 30,000-mile global sailing competition scheduled for next year.
The Source: Information in this story is from VSPC.