Everyone can see the economic impact the Georgia-Florida football game and other college events have on Jacksonville. But few may realize the growing impact of youth sports.
Rick Catlett, president of the Gator Bowl Association, spoke on what’s emerging in sports at the NEFBA Sales and Marketing Council’s May breakfast meeting.
The beauty of sports and tourism, Catlett said, is it generates economic impact without building streets or schools. The sports industry created a $100 million impact on Jacksonville last year alone.
The business community and the Gator Bowl Association, in partnership with the city last year formed the Jacksonville Sports Council, a nonprofit with a mission to spearhead the growth and development of events in North Florida.
On the horizon, Jacksonville is bidding to be one of 11 cities that will host the COPA America soccer championship, which comes to the U.S. for the first time in 2016.
In November for Jacksonville’s Celebration of Honor and Valor weekend, the city will host a football game between Notre Dame and the Navy.
Events like these put 80,000 people into buildings around the city, Catlett said. But the real growth niche the council has discovered is youth sports. Those events fill up the limited service hotels near downtown, more so than the resort hotels at the region’s edges.
In January, Jacksonville hosted a soccer match between Brazil and Germany.
“We filled up the entire Holiday Inn at the airport, which is our largest hotel,” Catlett said.
Jacksonville has also been awarded the U.S. National Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships, scheduled this summer, Catlett said. It’s an event that’s expected to bring 14,000 participants to Jacksonville over two weeks.