Springfield scores with trio of new sports events

Stan Adams: Securing USA Archery was a year in the making.

Three sports tournament announcements made in recent weeks are expected to bring nearly $3 million in economic impact to the Queen City in 2025 as part of roughly 20 sporting events planned over the next seven years, according to tourism officials.

The Springfield Sports Commission, which promotes sports tourism in the area, is among agencies involved in bringing competitions involving lesser locally watched sports, such as archery, futsal and rugby, to town. First up will be the Springfield Futsal Shootout, which represents a partnership among the commission, Lake Country Soccer, SWMO Rush and Betty & Bobby Allison Sports Town. Set for the first two weekends of January, the tournament will be held at Sports Town, a $30 million northwest Springfield facility on 105 acres near the Springfield-Branson National Airport and adjacent to Deer Lake Golf Course.

Futsal, which is a variation of soccer, includes five players per team on a smaller field. The field is usually indoor and often played on a hard court, like a basketball court, and the sport uses a heavier and smaller ball than soccer.

The girls’ tournament, scheduled Jan. 3-5, will feature around 70 teams, with the Jan. 10-12 boys’ tournament hosting 110 teams. The tournaments are expected to draw 50% of teams from outside the Springfield area.

Tournament organizers say the Springfield Futsal Shootout is projected to generate a combined $890,000 economic impact, with $393,000 in direct spending from the girls’ weekend and $497,000 from the boys’ weekend. Some 1,000 hotel room nights are expected to be generated over the two weekends.

That announcement comes as $958,000 in economic impact and up to 600 competitors are projected for USA Archery’s 2025 U.S. Open & Target Nationals, scheduled next Aug. 13-16. That will be preceded by USA Club Rugby’s Northern Super Regionals, set for May 2-4. The rugby event, which will include men’s and women’s teams from across the country, is projected to have a $678,000 economic impact, said Stan Adams, director of sports business development for the Springfield Sports Commission. Both archery and rugby tournaments also will be held at Sports Town, 209 Airport Blvd.

“These are all highly, highly competitive events that we’re landing for sure. So, it’s huge for us,” Adams said, noting Springfield beat out Columbia and Wichita, Kansas, for the rugby competition.

Securing events
Chris Martin is general manager at Sports Town, which opened in late 2022 and includes a 94,000-square-foot facility containing basketball and volleyball courts, as well as a pair of indoor soccer fields. He succeeded Stacie Wells around a year ago in the leadership role and heads a staff of roughly 40 at the venue, which features 12 outdoor sports fields – four of them with all-weather turf.

In its second full year of operation, Sports Town officials say they are expecting by year’s end to have hosted nearly 50 camps and events that will have generated over $5 million in economic impact. Martin said next year is looking even bigger, with more than 70 events and camps on tap. He declined to disclose annual revenues.

“The one thing about these events is that you just don’t pick up an event for next weekend. You have to start working on these things six months out, a year out,” Martin said. “So really a lot of our 2024 was spent on building the 2025 calendar, and now the 2025 calendar is pretty built out.”

Securing the archery competition was a lengthy process, Adams said, noting he began discussions with USA Archery shortly after he started at the Sports Commission late last year.

“I’ve been working with them for literally over a year to land that event,” he said.

Some secured events the Sports Commission can chalk up as local wins are multiyear contracts, Adams said. Those include renewal of hosting the Missouri State High School Activities Association State Softball Championships for 2026-30.

“A lot of the time we’re bidding on stuff three, four years out before we ever get it,” he said. “It generally is a year or longer process for us to land, especially these major, major events.”

Adams said even before the recent announcements involving archery, futsal and rugby, the Sports Commission had worked to bring 17 other sporting events to Springfield – some of which are returning to the Queen City, such as NXTPRO Hoops Series, a three-day basketball tournament that was held in July and is scheduled to be back next year. The events are expected to generate over $10 million in economic impact for the local community over the next seven years, he said.

Additionally, Wilson Logistics Arena, which opened at the start of the year, has hosted Missouri USA Wrestling events and four home games for the Ozarks Lunkers, a member of The Arena League six-on-six football’s debut season, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

The local competitions will boost what already is a large national economic impact, according to Sports Event & Tourism Association’s 2023 State of the Industry report. Sports ETA noted an economic impact of $128 billion last year from sports tourism in the U.S., which also generated $20.1 billion in tax revenue and 757,600 jobs. The U.S. sports tourism sector generated $52.2 billion in direct spending in 2023, according to the report. The direct spending total is a 31% increase from the organization’s most recent report released in 2022.

Making connections
Upon starting at the Sports Commission last year, Adams said one of his goals was to connect with Martin at Sports Town to see what opportunities existed to bring tournaments to town beyond traditionally popular ones like basketball, soccer and volleyball.

“They’d only been open for a little over a year trying to get their footing. And we all know new facilities like that, it takes a little while to get them off the ground,” Adams said, adding Martin’s willingness to think outside the box resulted in archery coming to Springfield from this year’s host venue, Lubbock, Texas.

Martin said Sports Town is a multisport facility and wants to appeal to a large audience, which includes showcasing unique sports such as rugby.

“They loved the facility and the things that Springfield had to offer,” he said regarding USA Club Rugby’s site visit earlier this year. “The airport was a huge draw as the airport facility is right here. Direct flights to Chicago and Denver made a big difference.”

In preparation for a collegiate cross country meet next fall, Martin said Sports Town plans to seek bids soon for constructing a course on its property. He estimated the project cost likely would range $30,000-$50,000.

“We’ll bid that out to some local turf companies,” he said. “The main work would be leveling ground and just getting in the course.”

Adams said some more deals for local sporting events are in the works, noting a multiyear contract with MSHAA for the state high school baseball championships is getting finalized. Additionally, Missouri Special Olympics is considering Springfield as a site for its annual State Outdoor Games competition. So, he said more announcements may soon be forthcoming from the Sports Commission.

“These are good problems to have, but we’re making our (public relations) and marketing team work overtime, that’s for sure,” he said.