Table 1 shows that each tournament alone attracts 445 men, women and children. These tournaments cater to “travel” teams, and indeed the majority of participants and families do travel from outside of the Fulton County area to attend.
The following analysis and information is based on the findings in the research study “The Impact of Youth Sports on a Regional Economy” and used with permission from Sherwood B. Smith, President, , Avenue ISR.Avenue ISR is a business strategy and research consulting firm serving an international client base from Traverse City, Michigan. Avenue ISR has conducted consulting engagements for multi-national corporations as well as regional businesses, governments and NGOs.
Table 2 shows that more than 80 percent of attendees travel from outside the area to attend the tournaments. With 91.2 percent of all attendees traveling from outside of the Fulton County area and 81.4 percent traveling from outside the Capital District region, this would mean that these tournaments over a 9 week span (first week of July through Labor Day) bring 4000 people to the Fulton County area, all but 744 of whom are from outside the Capital Region.
Youth athletes and their families do more than merely attend the tournaments. They stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, purchase gas and groceries, shop for souvenirs and pay for entertainment. The involvement of grandparents and younger siblings ensures that there is an appetite for a variety of different visitor experiences.
Beyond accommodations, the economic impact of these tournaments is spread across several business segments. Table 4 shows that the majority of attending families purchase restaurant meals, gasoline, groceries and other retail products.
Table 5 shows that of those attendees who have visited the area in the past, 59 percent indicate that they have returned to the area for an overnight visit/vacation because of their experiences
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council’s 2015 Benchmarking Report, when measuring the direct, indirect, and induced impact, the Travel & Tourism sector supported 13.7 million jobs or 9.3% of total employment in
For over one hundred years, baseball has been played on the Parkhurst Field grounds.