Major softball tournaments in June and July brought record numbers of athletes and sports fans to Owensboro.
The National Softball Association Fast Pitch “B” World Series is happening this week in Evansville and Owensboro. This project has been in the works for more than a year and marks the first joint project of the Owensboro-Daviess County Convention and Visitors Bureau and their counterparts across the river – the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau and Evansville Sports Authority.
Working together, both communities are able to host a portion of this mega tournament neither community could have handled on its own. The series includes more than 200 teams plus coaches, officials and fans – more than 8,500 visitors with an economic impact of around $2.2 million.
“Working together successfully like this takes our sports recruiting program to another level,” Said Jared Bratcher, Sports Director for the Owensboro-Daviess County CVB. “With Evansville as a potential tournament partner, we can look at different, bigger tournaments.”
The partnership for the World Series tournament has already lead to a second shared tournament. When Evansville’s Deaconess Sports Complex hit capacity for the NSA’s Indiana State Tournament with teams still wanting to participate, they decided to expand with 22 teams playing and staying in Owensboro.
“The NSA Indiana tournament already happened at the end of June,” said Bratcher. “We had already worked together so well on the World Series we were quickly able to jump in to help.”
The CVB is funded by 3% of the local hotel occupancy tax paid by visitors like the ones attending these tournaments. The CVB’s portion of the tax received in June was $61,078.74. This amount was collected during the month of April.
