Skip to Main Content
Menu Close

Determining Exact Economic Impact

May 29, 2018

It was reported that Super Bowl LII brought $400 million into the Twin Cities local economy. While some businesses were overwhelmed, others were not. Businesses with the right product and location flourished. There is no doubt you get out-of-town visitors with events, but how many is difficult to accurately determine. Over 1 million visitors attended the Super Bowl LIVE at Nicollet Mall over the 10 days of festivities, with 1.4 million visiting the Mall of America during that same time. But how much each visitor spends and where they spend it is a challenge to track.

We run into similar challenges in measuring local economic impact dollars here in Rochester with the youth amateur sports events hosted in the city. Sports tourism data collected by the National Association of Sports Commissions (NASC) shows sports-related visitors spent $10.74 billion (yes, billion) in 2016. This figure has grown by 26% since 2012 and continues to increase at an amazing pace.

So what portion of those numbers do we see locally? In 2017 we tracked each of our community sporting events and estimated that visitors attending these events spent a total of $25,867,993 for the year. This is based on historic data that is entered into a computer system based on number of entrants, hotel stays, length of stay and so on. Our projected economic impact for 2018 is still being determined but looks to be again in that $25 million range.

Simple multipliers can be used to help determine economic impact also. In past years we used an amount such as $259 that is based on the average cost of an overnight stay in a hotel room plus the average amount a person spends on dining, parking, and shopping. However, we have events where many of the participants do not stay over in hotels – so that can be somewhat inaccurate. We can use the economic impact numbers given to us by governing bodies (NCAA, AAU, USSSA, etc.), but usually those can be over-inflated and not representative of cities such as Rochester. We have considered using a third-party consultant to conduct a study to help accurately determine figures, but consultants’ methods vary and the results would not necessarily be any more accurate than the system we currently have.

So, while there is no perfect science, there is no doubt that bringing athletes and their families into town creates a positive economic impact to the community. Just the events we ran in 2017 generated over half a million dollars in our own organization’s and local sports associations’ spending on costs such as facility rentals (RCTC, Park Dept, local schools), merchandise purchases for local businesses, banquets, medical trainers, porta-pottie rentals, numerous game workers (officials, scorers, etc.), printing and more.

Factor in all the athletes, families and fans spending and the numbers do go up from there. How much exactly is difficult to say. However, if you have any doubt in the actual spending, ask a parent of a traveling athlete and they will confirm – there is a lot of spending in amateur sports!

Upcoming Events:

June 1-3: RYBA Classic Baseball Tournament

June 8-10: 5th Annual Rochester Rundown Baseball Tournament