Big business on Strand, sports tourism interest increasing in other markets

Sports tourism is an annual $100 million-plus business on the Grand Strand and could be bigger, say area sports tourism professionals, but the region needs to continue to build on what it has to ensure its future in the market.

“In the sports tourism industry,” said Tim Huber, who heads the city of Myrtle Beach’s effort, “it’s an arms race out there.”

Mid-sized towns everywhere are seeing sports tourism as a potential revenue stream and are building facilities to compete with the likes of Grand Park and the North Myrtle Beach Park and Sports Complex.

Huber, Matt Gibbons of North Myrtle Beach and Mark Beale of Myrtle Beach’s new 100,000-square-foot Sports Center formed the panel in a wide-ranging discussion of the area’s sports tourism industry, the plethora of facilities, the marketing effort and the future in a breakout session Tuesday at the 77th annual meeting of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

All said they get calls weekly from event directors who want to bring their competitions to the Grand Strand, but added that part of the success is learning which will fulfill their promises of attendance and which to cultivate as annual clients.

Team members and their families make a vacation of their trips to sporting events, said Lawrence Jones of the Grand Strand Softball Classic, whose organization brought 95 girls high school softball teams to Grand Park ball fields in the past two weeks.

Jones started the tournament 18 years ago, and it was played on fields at Pepper Geddings Recreation Center before Grand Park opened.

As with other sports tourism events, the players’ families come to watch the competition, but the Strand and its many attractions are a big part of their choice of venues.

“We’ve got all the amenities and attractions most places don’t have,” Beale said.

Jim Sewell, coach of the team from St. Mary’s Ryken High School in Leonardtown, Md., said the school is in its 10th year at the Softball Classic.

The team’s 13 members are driven south by their parents, who vacation while their daughters reawaken their softball skills in spring practice earlier than they could get it at home.

The school spends about $5,000 for the competition, housing and food for coaches and players, Sewell said, while parents and other family members pay their own way.

The economic impact can go even further, though, said Gibbons. One family who came to an event at the North Myrtle Beach complex stayed an extra week and bought a condominium before they left town.

Some of the events attract thousands of entrants, and Huber and Gibbons said they are constantly surprised by how many are on their first trip to the Grand Strand.

“They’re constantly asking questions about what to see, where to eat,” Huber said.

The new Sports Center in Myrtle Beach has generated talk of its own about the Strand’s facilities, drawing inquiries from officials in Charlotte and Virginia Beach who say they would like to have something similar, Beale said.

Not only has it become a destination to host indoor events such as cheerleading, basketball and volleyball competitions, but Beale said it could become the site of other, Sports Center-generated events.

While the facilities built and owned by Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach get most of the attention, the area also has facilities owned by other cities, area schools and recreation departments, which also host sports tourists.

“The Horry County schools and their facilities have a huge impact,” Huber said.

A Myrtle Beach Regional Sports Alliance has been formed to make the best use of them all.

And while the competition to attract and keep the right events to fill the facilities may be stiff and getting stiffer, the Grand Strand has one important amenity that’s recognized as a primary draw both by those who run the facilities and those who book the tournaments.

“We always do have the ocean,” Gibbons said.

“They actually come here because of that ocean out there,” Jones said. “We don’t have Mickey Mouse, but (Disney World) can’t do what we do.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Big business on Strand, sports tourism interest increasing in other markets."