I am trying to get girls travel softball kicked off in our area. I need a little help. I am looking for any articles online that shows the finacial growth that tournaments bring to a city. I want to present this to our city council man and try to push to get us a park to hold tournaments, practice, etc...
Travel ball articles
- Thread starter ATF_Butcher
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- May 13, 2008
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Certainly you can try to use the financial aspect to appeal to the city. Focus on the number of teams, players, and parents who will be staying over a weekend for a tournament.
Don't ignore, however, the impact that organized sport will have on the city's daughters. Leadership, learning how to succeed, achieving long term goals, staying healthy, lower pregnancy rates, etc. Not too many people get rich in this sport, but there are plenty of reasons why we keep playing and coaching this game.
Don't ignore, however, the impact that organized sport will have on the city's daughters. Leadership, learning how to succeed, achieving long term goals, staying healthy, lower pregnancy rates, etc. Not too many people get rich in this sport, but there are plenty of reasons why we keep playing and coaching this game.
Look at reality.
When you talk about more prestigious tournaments given by long time quality organizations that attract other quality organizations to play, there is some limited economic impact. If you can get a dozen teams in each age group from out of town to spend 2 nights several times per year, you are doing really well. You can do the math on that though. 2nights x 100x 14 per team =$2800 per team in hotel, probably $300 in food and expenses and trip home gas per kid = $4200 = $7000 per team. 12x 5 age groups = 60 teams= $ 420,000. Do that 2x per yr and its $840,000.
But a startup wont do that . It will attract a few weaker teams in daily 1-2 hr driving distance just looking for a place to play someone without going too far. And impact will be minimal. A good deal of tournaments never make, they cannot attract enough interest. I would say that there is no shortage at all of tournament choices to enter today, rather the problem is finding tournaments with enough interest to get enough teams to show to make it a worthwhile trip.
When you talk about more prestigious tournaments given by long time quality organizations that attract other quality organizations to play, there is some limited economic impact. If you can get a dozen teams in each age group from out of town to spend 2 nights several times per year, you are doing really well. You can do the math on that though. 2nights x 100x 14 per team =$2800 per team in hotel, probably $300 in food and expenses and trip home gas per kid = $4200 = $7000 per team. 12x 5 age groups = 60 teams= $ 420,000. Do that 2x per yr and its $840,000.
But a startup wont do that . It will attract a few weaker teams in daily 1-2 hr driving distance just looking for a place to play someone without going too far. And impact will be minimal. A good deal of tournaments never make, they cannot attract enough interest. I would say that there is no shortage at all of tournament choices to enter today, rather the problem is finding tournaments with enough interest to get enough teams to show to make it a worthwhile trip.
halskinner
Banned
- May 7, 2008
- 2,649
- 0
if you are talking about the city building a sports complex; Make it a multi-sport complex. Baseball, softball and soccer complex will get the support of the entire community, not just the softballers.
From what I have seen in our area, you stand a better chance that way.
From what I have seen in our area, you stand a better chance that way.
- Sep 3, 2009
- 674
- 0
In my town we have two very good facilities, one run by the city (softball only), and one run by the county (multi sport). Both are nice, but the softball only site is very well maintained and really a beautiful quality complex. They run leagues (rec, and travel), tournaments, college tournaments, high school tournaments, etc. I don't think either of these would be able to exist if there wasn't already the teams available to make them work. If you had plenty of land, it might make sense to keep the number of fields down, and just add them as demand goes up. Don't gouge at the snack stand. Make people want to come back. 
No we have a complax we can use, but they just do not like travel ball. They are old school and say that we are pulling the talent out of the park.
- Jan 6, 2009
- 5
- 0
Pulling the talent out of the park league is such garbage.I have had this discussion several times with the rec leaders in our town.....now the girls who really want to play travel are playing in the surrounding towns on their travel ball teams and our teams are weaker because of it
