Airstream Ventures LLC founder and CEO Alan Verlander says the inspiration for his Jacksonville-based sports promotion and management company goes back to 1996.
At the time, Verlander was director of marketing and operations at Gator Bowl Sports Inc. He said a bellman stopped him as he entered the Marriott Sawgrass, one of the team hotels for the annual college football classic.
“He asked me if I was with the Gator Bowl. When I said yes, he thanked me and then said he made a lot of tips that week, so he was able to do things for his kids that he wouldn’t be able to do if we didn’t have the game,” Verlander said.
Verlander established Airstream Ventures in 2018 to help cities create and manage sports tourism, music and entertainment events.
In addition to his time with Gator Bowl Sports, Verlander was director of athletics at Jacksonville University from 2005 to 2012, executive director of sports and entertainment at the city of Jacksonville from 2012-14 and CEO of JAXSports Council and COO of the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl from 2014 until he started Airstream Ventures in April 2018.
He and his seven-member staff specialize being a sports tourism partner, planning and staging events for medium-size cities and counties.
Current partners include Clay County, Lake City, Sebring, Avon Park and Lake Placid in Florida. The national client base comprises Asheville, North Carolina; Charleston, West Virginia; Lynchburg, Virginia; and North Platte, Nebraska.
Event types include golf, flag football, lacrosse, fast-pitch softball, cornhole, skateboarding, obstacle course events, dance competitions and others.
Verlander said the company had 61 events on its calendar in 2024 and expects to have close to 80 events around the country in 2025.
“Economic impact is crucial. We work with communities and their planners to put events in cities when business is needed.”
In 2024, Sebring hosted the Florida Blast Lacrosse Tournament. More than 1,900 athletes and coaches and about 5,500 fans attended the event, accounting for more than 3,600 room nights and $1.5 million spent in the community, according to data provided by Airstream.
Verlander estimates more than $90 million in total economic impact to date for the company’s partner cities.
Events have an immediate impact, bringing fans and participants who fill hotels and spend money at local businesses. It’s also a way that people discover new destinations for leisure travel after they have attended an event, he said.
The communities that Airstream partners with aren’t big enough to justify having dedicated, full-time sports and entertainment marketing teams, so partnering with Airstream provides a way to have the benefits of sports tourism.
“We deliver events and make it work for them. There are thousands of cities that can use what we do. We have a niche and I see that as our growth pattern,” Verlander said.