Local Economy A Big Winner This Weekend
John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Only one college baseball team is going to advance to the NCAA Tournament Super Regionals after this weekend’s Morgantown Regional, but the real winner is going to be the area’s economy.
West Virginia University’s success in men’s and women’s soccer, women’s basketball and now baseball, has equated into four national tournament events coming to Morgantown this academic calendar year – the most ever.
The Mountaineer women’s soccer team played Wagner and the men’s soccer team faced St. John’s in NCAA Tournament first-round games in Morgantown last fall.
Women’s basketball brought March Madness to Morgantown for the first time since 1992, while NCAA Tournament baseball games will be played here for a second time in seven years.
That means people following Wagner women’s soccer or St. John’s men’s soccer came to Morgantown from different parts of the Northeast.
It means followers of the three other teams that played in the NCAA women’s tournament first and second round games from Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, spent some time here. Or those arriving today or tomorrow from North Carolina, Kentucky and New York are going to be spending an entire weekend in the area.
For some, it’s their first time ever visiting West Virginia.
Hannah Winaught, creative director at Visit Morgantown Country CVB, says sports tourism is often people’s first introduction to the city. Their goal is to make the experience a rewarding and enjoyable one for all our visitors.
“These types of events taking place this weekend put us on the map,” she said. “We call these ‘destination branding’ events, and it gives everyone a source of community pride. When March Madness came here last spring, there was a lot of road work being done and people were cleaning up their properties to help us put our best foot forward.”
The impact extends far beyond Morgantown, as well.
When a Wake Forest fan driving through West Virginia stops in Flatwoods to get gas on the way to Morgantown, that’s economic impact. When a Kentucky fan breaks up the trip by stopping in Charleston to get a quick bite to eat, that’s economic impact.
People coming from Binghamton, New York, will be bringing their money with them to Morgantown, meaning outside dollars will be coming into area restaurants, hotels, microbreweries and outdoor recreational venues in Monongalia and surrounding counties.
It’s a significant deal - a topic West Virginia University vice president and director of athletics Wren Baker recently touched on during his annual spring meeting with local media.
Baker is a big proponent of state tourism, and he believes having a successful Mountaineer athletic program can help fuel a growing industry.
“I’ve talked to you in the past about how important I believe it is for us to bring dollars into our city, community and state, and also to promote tourism throughout the state,” he said earlier this month. “(These events) bring a lot of people into the city; it fills hotel rooms and restaurants, so those are all good things for the local and state economy.”
Indeed, it is.
John Deskins, director of business and economic research for West Virginia University’s John Chambers College of Business and Economics, says the community really benefits when these types of events come to town.
“People like Wren Baker hire people like me to analyze this data, and it’s a big job and normally, they would survey visitors and get a sense of what they actually spend,” Deskins noted. “You can guess what the average person spends just based on common sense for hotels, entertainment, restaurants, etc., but a real study would use surveys, and it would typically involve an economic multiplier model or an input/output model, which are used all the time.
“The multiplier model gives you a sense of for every dollar (a fan) spends at a restaurant, how much additional economic activity does that create upstream or downstream through these multiplier effects?” he said.
According to Deskins, for every dollar spent at a hotel, restaurant, bar or some other local establishment, the multiplier model factors in additional economic impact based on the industry and location.
Multiplier effects are bigger in more urban areas, but for tourism, it is roughly going to amount to about 1½ to two times more than the actual dollars spent.
“That means if you have a group of people who spend a million dollars in Morgantown, the overall economic impact is probably going to be something like $1.5 to $2 million,” Deskins explained.
If you take the two NCAA Tournament women’s games against Miami, Ohio, and Kentucky, which attracted approximately 26,000 fans over a three-day period, that’s a significant amount of dollars when you evaluate total economic activity.
Of course, not all 26,000 fans in attendance for those two games spent two nights in a hotel, but if so, that’s roughly 52,000 combined nights in Morgantown, which is more in line with what a typical football weekend would represent.
Then, when factoring roughly $150 per-person being spent, the sum would conservatively equate into approximately $7.8 million for the local economy. When economists include the multiplier effect of 1½, it comes out to $11.7 million in total spending.
“(The economic benefit of this weekend’s baseball games) is well into the millions in overall impact, not the thousands,” Deskins noted. “It’s an important number.”
The last economic study authorized by Athletics in 2017 revealed the department generated nearly $303 million in total economic impact to the state for the year, so that figure is likely more than $400 million today when factoring in inflation.
Winaught said the area experienced a 3.4% increase in visitor spending this past March, accounting for approximately $8.7 million, and March Madness certainly had role in that figure.
This weekend’s NCAA Tournament baseball games are expected to drive up visitor spending this month and into June.
Baker said he’s already had discussions with opposing athletic directors inquiring about dining, golfing and recreational suggestions for their fans and donors to explore during their time away from Kendrick Family Ballpark.
Once the Wake Forest-Kentucky game concludes mid-afternoon on Friday, that still leaves plenty of time for a quick round of golf, or perhaps a late-afternoon hike up at Cooper’s Rock or maybe even some kayaking on the Monongahela River or Cheat Lake.
“It’s important for our visitors to get the full experience of what we have to offer in the area,” Baker observed. “As much as tourism has grown in the state, there are still many people who have not experienced all of the great things we have to offer here.”
Deskins reiterates the importance of outside money coming into the local economy this weekend.
“The fact that it is outside dollars is crucial,” he said. “If we’re just getting people to come up here from Charleston, then that’s not nearly as core important. It’s just taking economic activity from one part of the state to another part of the state.”
Even though the baseball regional won’t attract as many fans as those who came here to watch the two NCAA Tournament women’s games, Deskins points out that the length of the baseball regional this weekend is also impactful because of the additional time visitors will remain in the area.
These events are also important for community and civic pride.
“I would argue the more important impact is having events like these regularly make Morgantown more attractive to potential residents,” Deskins noted. “We want people to move here. We want people who live here to stay here and if you have something like this cool to do periodically, that just makes the area more attractive to potential residents and existing residents.
“That’s the part that’s not easily quantifiable, but that’s probably the much bigger impact rather than just the spending the comes and goes with the one event,” he explained.
“People are always excited about hosting these types of events, and I always say it takes a village,” Winaught added. “We made sure all the visiting ADs and officials coming here this weekend had welcome gift baskets in their hotel rooms, and we had a lot of people involved last-minute to put this together.
“The community pride and spirit have really shined through this week,” she concluded.
