Jacksonville tourism officials have identified an initial set of at least 20 events they would try to bring to the city under a proposal by City Council President Ron Salem to boost sports tourism efforts, the president and CEO of Visit Jacksonville told a Council committee Jan. 17.
Speaking about an ordinance sponsored by Salem to funnel $1.5 million into helping Jacksonville land an array of athletic events – and the tourism dollars and TV exposure that come with them – Visit Jacksonville’s Michael Corrigan said the city could realistically bring in one or two events this year but would begin competing for others stretching over at least the next four years if the funding is approved.
Corrigan said initial targets include the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the NCAA Division II Championships Festival, an Olympics-style event in which championships in several sports including soccer, cross country and volleyball are played out at a single site over several days.
Long-range goals include attracting events on the scale of the NFL Draft, which generated an estimated $164.3 million in economic development for metro Kansas City, Missouri, where it was held in 2023. The NFL said a total of 312,000 people attended the event.
By comparison, the annual Florida-Georgia football game produces about $40 million for Jacksonville.
“We’ve got to start small. We’ve got to get in the game,” Corrigan told the Finance Committee.
Ordinance 2023-0869 would appropriate funds from the Duval County Tourist Development Council to Visit Jacksonville for a concentrated effort on sports tourism development, including paying for event application fees and expenses for staff to travel for meetings and contract negotiations.
The money would not be used for hiring new staff, at least not initially.
Salem also envisions the creation of a nonprofit organization to help direct the development effort and raise private funding to support it.
The organization’s role would be similar to that of the Sports and Entertainment Commission, which the city operated for several years before disbanding it in 2014.
Corrigan said the city created a $350,000 pot of money for sports tourism four or five years ago, but that fund had dwindled to about $100,000.
Salem said he foresaw the new nonprofit as having a seven- to nine-member board of directors comprising local residents with connections to the sporting world, such as Gator Bowl President and CEO Greg McGarity.
Corrigan said other cities have adopted this approach, including regional metros like Nashville, Tennessee and Charlotte, North Carolina, that Jacksonville would compete with for events. Charlotte is spending $5 million on sports tourism, he said.
Salem said there was “nothing magic” about Jacksonville’s $1.5 million funding level.
“But we want to show the sporting industry that we’re serious about this, and therefore we’ve put $1.5 million into a pot to attract those events,” he said.
Salem identified a top goal as bringing March Madness back to Jacksonville, where games in the opening rounds of the men’s basketball tournament were held four times from 2006 through 2019 before the city fell off of the tournament’s radar.
“One of the first charges I’ll have to this group is we need to get back on this cycle where it’s here every four or five years,” he said.
Council member Kevin Carrico said he was pleased to see the focus on bringing in high-profile events and asked whether the city would pursue the College Football Playoff, which is expanding from four teams to 12 next year.
Carrico said he would also like the city to go after major youth sporting events, such as AAU basketball and volleyball tournaments.
The committee approved the ordinance on an 8-0 vote, advancing it toward a final vote by the full Council.