March Madness remains in full swing this weekend, and it won’t be long now until The Big Dance comes to Fort Worth.
Fort Worth Dickies Arena is on schedule to open in late 2019, and will host the first and second rounds of off the NCAA tournament in 2022.
Now Fort Worth is looking for ways to grab a share of the huge youth sports market, launching a study to identify what the city needs to attract big events.
“The city has really identified that youth sports and sports tourism in general is a real economic driver for the community”, says Jason Sands, Director of Sports Marketing for Visit Fort Worth, which used to be called the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Consulting firms have until the end of the day Friday, March 23rd to get in their proposals to conduct the study. After a firm is chosen, the recommendations are expected by the end of this summer.
The bureau plans to have an assessment of Fort Worth's youth facilities and sports facilities to identify what strengths and hurdles the city faces to host bigger events.
“If you look at soccer right now, there’s tournaments in the Metroplex that have 300, 400 teams”, says Sands. “Right now a lot of our soccer players that are here in Fort Worth drive east to participate on teams and do travel tournaments and so on, what we’re trying to figure out is a way to get those kids to stay here and give them something that they can kind of work with here in Fort Worth."
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The youth sports industry brings in $15 billion annually and Fort Worth wants a piece of the pie, Sands says.
“We’re talking about baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, any kind of outdoor youth facilities that’s what we’re trying to understand whether we have the capabilities to host or not,” Sands says.
