Wednesday, March 3, 2010

2011 10yr old Cal Ripken World Series is coming to Winchester

Congrats to WPRD officials, Winchester Baseball as well as City Council approving the $75,000 needed for Winchester Baseball to host the World Series BUT lets get within the ballpark on the number of visitors, the number of hotels that will be needed and how much money will be spent within our local community.

How many people can Winchester/Frederick County expect to see coming into the local community and how profitable can it be?
"Through all our banners, tickets, concessions, after everything was done, the committee made around $75,000," said Rick Akers, parks and recreation director for Lamar, Colo., which hosted the event last summer. "We still made money, and we gave back to the kids."

Lamar raised about $70,000 from sponsorships and about $20,000 in admission tickets. A souvenir booth made about $10,500.

"We had good participation, good attendance, but you didn't see a lot of grandmas and grandpas like we thought we would," Akers said. Rights to the tournament come with a $40,000 price tag, and Lamar paid for it with a tourism tax.

Lamar, CO drew 24 coaches and 114 players. Most stayed 10 days and played on a new field built with grant money. About 250 adults and 200 children stayed in 140 hotel rooms, according to provided data.


The information and quotes above is more in the ballpark than this quote back in February 19, 2009 in a story featured within the Winchester Star:
Citing an economic analysis that Babe Ruth Baseball does for host cities, Brad Veach said that areas normally generate between $1.2 and $2 million over the 10-day tournament. That money comes from hotels (an estimate of 700 rooms needed) meals at local restaurants, gas and other expenditures.

3 comments:

THE PIBBSTER said...

In Today's Winchester Star, I think this quote is very misleading:

“I think the biggest challenge is financial,” Bob Brown said. “We’re going to need about 700 hotel rooms and sponsors. We’ll need all the help we can get from the community.”


Brad Veach said the undertaking requires no new tax dollars and that revenue generated from hosting the event will replace that $75,000 authorized by the city council.

“We’re doing this with funds that are reserve funds,” said Veach, who has been working with the city and Winchester Baseball officials for over a year on the event. “We didn’t ask council for any new tax dollars. We’re taking some reserve funds to make improvements to the field and secure the contract [with Cal Ripken-Babe Ruth].”

Mr. Veach told me that they had a $450,000+ surplus over the last 3yrs.

How come WPRD did not make these improvements already within the last 3yrs with the surplus from the WPRD operating budget?

Just wondering, IF these improvements/repairs where already made with the surplus that I was told was in excess of $450,000, would there still been a need to ask the City for $75,000?

OR

Was this the plan that WPRD/WB had all long to accumulate surplus funds for a World Series but unfortunately, the economy fell?

Again, Congrats to Winchester Baseball for getting the opportunity to host the event.

THE PIBBSTER said...

Another statement from Winchester Star's article today:

Brown — who has been affiliated with Winchester Baseball since 1986 — said last year’s Winchester Baseball 8-year-old All-Star team advanced to the Southeast Regional, and that’s the group that will be 10-years-old next summer.

It’s still far too early to determine who will play on that team, but Brown expects the event to be a winning combination with this area.


I think that is BS statement, they are practicing currently in the Armory!

Mr. Brown knows exactly who'll be playing on the 10yr old ALL-STAR team unless a top flight player from Frederick County or Shenandoah County might want to play on that 2011 10yr old World Series team.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, seriously look at 450 individuals needing 140 hotel rooms in Lamar. That works out to about 3.2 persons per room

Based on that, 600 rooms x 3.2 is 1920 people from our of the area attending.

When you factor in this 700 rooms needed that Mr. Brown and Mr. Veach have stated, that's 2240 people visiting to stay in our hotels which is not going to happen.

You'll be lucky if you get 500 visitors from outside the area which will be approx. 156 rooms and that's IF you're lucky.

Post a Comment