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[starts at 0:00:00]
Bill Smith: Good morning. If everybody could settle in, take your seats, we’ll get this
Breakfast Series lecture going today. First off, we’d like to thank Huntington Bank
for again this year being an underwriter of our Breakfast Series, and we’re very excited
that this is our first Breakfast Series in our new home.
And so hopefully everybody enjoyed the breakfast and enjoys this new venue, and we look forward
to having many more. Speaking of which, after this first breakfast November 12th we’ll
have *** DeVos who’ll be our next breakfast lecture speaker right here so put that on
your calendar.
Next Wednesday for the Seidman alum we have our first social series at Cygnus 27. That
starts at 5:30. It’s free, free valet parking so there’s no reason not to be there. We
will be talking to Elissa Hillary from Local First. She’s the Executive Director there
so that should be very good.
I’d also like to welcome President Haas to our first Breakfast Series, too, so thank
you very much for squeezing this into your time and we’re really excited that we have
that going on.
Tim Selgo is going to introduce our speaker today, and Tim’s been with Grand Valley
I think about 18 years. He’s done a few wonderful things for Grand Valley on the athletics
side. We’ve had twelve Directors Cups and the top two at least in that 18 years. We’ve
had 15 Presidents Cups, pretty amazing things and I could spend twenty minutes just talking
about Tim but I won’t. The one downside of Tim is that he comes from Ohio, so we’ll
still let him come up but… [laughter] Tim, will you join us and introduce our speaker
today?
[Applause]
Tim Selgo: Well I was born and grew up in Ohio but I’ve become a Tiger fan – how
about them Tigers, huh? Is Jason Verlander a stud or what? He is tremendous.
Well good morning. I guess we’re talking about sports business so they asked the jock
to do the introductions here this morning, and I get that opportunity. As Bill said I’m
Director of Athletics here at Grand Valley and I’m pleased to introduce Mike Guswiler.
This has been a big week for Grand Valley, a huge week. We dedicated this beautiful William
Seidman Center; we unveiled a beautiful statue of Bill Seidman on our Allendale campus next
to our Mary Idema Pew Library yesterday. And it’s also Ferris week. We play football
at Ferris on Saturday and anybody in the audience wearing any shade of red will be charged $25
for their breakfast. [laughter] President Haas, hmm? He’s excused, he’s my boss.
[laughter]
But I’m pleased to introduce Mike Guswiler to talk to you a little bit about the sports
tourism industry and what the West Michigan Sports Commission has been able to accomplish
since its inception in 2007. I’ve been very honored and very proud to serve on the Executive
Board of the Sports Commission since its inception in 2007 and it’s really been a lot of fun
for all of us that have been a part of us to watch the growth and what Mike and his
staff have done with the Sports Commission here during that six plus years that it’s
been in existence.
And Mike’s been its first Executive Director since it was established and he’s been leading
all the operations since that time. And under his leadership the Commission has booked nearly
300 sporting events that have attracted 315,000 athletes and visitors to West Michigan. An
example of that would be this coming May the Sports Commission teamed with Laker Athletics
to draw the NCAA Division II Track and Field National Championships to West Michigan – over
700 and some athletes and coaches and parents will be descending upon our wonderful region
May 22nd through the 24th. We call that a shameless plug in our world. [laughter]
But during this time the Sports Commission has generated over $100 million in direct
visitor spending and Mike was recently promoted to President of the West Michigan Sports Commission,
overseeing all of its operations. And the signature (inaudible) game with Michigan…
[audio drops out 0:04:48 – 0:05:10]
Tim Selgo: Some fantastic construction is going on right now although we did have the
opening ceremonies and the opening pitch at West Michigan Miracle League of the disabled
children playing their first baseball game on its field and sometime you need to get
out there and see it because it’s going to be a jewel in this community when it’s
done. And there’ll be a lot of youth coming in here playing those sports in the years
ahead.
Mike’s primary responsibility is to champion of course the mission of the Sports Commission
which is promoting the region on a statewide, regional and national scale as a premier venue
for hosting youth and amateur sports to enhance the region’s economy and quality of life.
And so it’s my honor and privilege to introduce the President of the West Michigan Sports
Commission Mike Guswiler.
[Applause]
Mike Guswiler: Thank you, Tim. I think I’m switching on to a (Inaudible)? Do you have
me, can you hear me okay? Alright.
As Tim had pointed out he’s been just an integral member of our organization since
we really were organized in 2007 and Tim along with so many other Board members, and I’ll
talk about that as I get into my presentation, have meant so much to what we’ve been able
to do and how we’ve been able to succeed in our short six years.
Alright, and I need to mention at this point in time I’m the first speaker of the Huntington
Lecture Series and I’m going to use this mic, too. So it’s important to have two
mics. Here’s the key to that, is as the first speaker I can either be extremely nervous
or I’ve got wonderful excuses as the first speaker. And I know I’m preceding *** DeVos
so either you’re practicing with me or I have the pleasure of preceding *** DeVos.
It’s truly my pleasure to be here. As Tim had mentioned we’ve got a great Board but
it takes a great community also. Huntington Bank has been terrific partners in our formation
as well as a corporate partner and really helping our operations move along, so I’m
excited to be speaking on behalf of the Huntington Breakfast Lecture Series as well.
So as you see I’m going to be talking about the $7 billion business of sports tourism
and how West Michigan and our region can gain a larger piece of that using the amateur sports
industry. So moving on or getting into this, there’s really four points that I want to
cover as we talk through this presentation. It’s really to talk about what sports tourism
is and define that, talk about the importance of tourism in the state of Michigan and then
get to really… Hopefully I’ve presented the case of why the West Michigan Sports Commission
was formed and then get into in our formative years some of our strategic planning and what
we’ve done to set success for the future.
To really kick things off I think it’s important to establish a foundation. We’re very fortunate
to live in the region that we live in, and with Grand Rapids and the work that’s being
done in our business landscape – all the happenings along Medical Mile and the research
and development to the Bayer Pharmaceuticals; also really what’s happening around our
leadership and the contributions that are being made to really grow and establish our
region.
I’m going to present a video to you and it’s titled “The Art of Collaboration.”
This video was shown and maybe some of you have seen it at a (Inaudible) Club but it
was made on behalf of the Experience Grand Rapids CBB, our partners, also Downtown Grand
Rapids, Inc. for a recent convention that was in town – CEO for Cities. And CEO for
Cities came into Grand Rapids, and probably the last audience level was over 340 CEOs
or leaders from various communities around the country to really look at collaboration,
sustainability of cities and take some best practices away from Grand Rapids. So this
video really gives a great foundation and really talks about the community that we live
in and really what’s been presented as an opportunity for us to grow from.
So we’re going to go ahead and play that video.
[plays video 0:10:15 – 0:12:59]
Mike Guswiler: Some pretty powerful stuff in that video and really, again, lays the
foundation of who we are as a community. And Grand Valley State University plays a big
part of that, the Seidman College of Business, this new facility certainly plays a part in
that. You saw some of the call-outs, the Top 15 Emerging Cities, the Top 10 Research and
Development in Biopharmaceuticals and so many more – Beer City USA, of course we all appreciate
that.
So those are important things to really look at the success that we’ve had and the collaboration
and the partnerships that exist in this community, and it’s no different for the formation
of the West Michigan Sports Commission. But before getting into that I’ll really talk
about sports and the importance of sports, and how really it’s a fabric of our lives.
It’s all around us.
On this slide you can see some pictures that I’m sure you can pick out and identify what
those pictures are: just this past year the University of Michigan making it to the Final
Four, some very exciting games going up against Louisville. It was great to see them get that
far. But to talk about the numbers behind that and look at the impact that that makes
on various communities: the NCAA DI Men’s Basketball March Madness has twelve different
cities that it stops in on its Road to the Final Four. And in those cities and those
fans and the economic impact ranges anywhere from $8 million to $70 million for Atlanta
that hosted the Final Four. And those are big numbers and those are numbers that make
an impact on communities through sports.
Of course the top middle picture, Augusta National and the Master’s, Adam Scott winning
that this past year in great fashion. But when you talk about Augusta, Georgia, a city
about the same size as Grand Rapids, Michigan, is inundated with 40,000 people over the period
of these four, five days over the Master’s that are visiting; and probably 14 million
viewers across the country and internationally that bring over $100 million into that community
around that sporting event.
Louisville and Churchill Downs, when you talk about what that race is it really comes down
to two minutes and two seconds. That’s the length of the Kentucky Derby, the 139th running
that they had this year – for two minutes and two seconds the city goes wild for about
a week. And the numbers of people that inundate that city and the hundreds of millions of
dollars that go into those businesses and those hotels and those restaurants.
Of course then we’ve got Floyd Mayweather, Jr., a product of West Michigan; the NASCAR
Nation; and what I consider to be a pinnacle of youth in amateur sports and that is the
International Olympics. And of course we know Chicago made a bid to host in 2016. It was
a bid that didn’t quite make the grade for various reasons but Chicago spent $60 million
in their effort to bid on the International Olympic Summer Games and that’s pretty significant.
And there’s other cities across the country, across the world that are vying for that – that
will spend that amount of money and then also spend much more in infrastructure because
of the billions of dollars that that returns in visitors coming into the community.
So those are some of the numbers behind the sports and how sports really play a huge fabric
of our lives.
I’m going to dial it down a little bit and really talk more about youth and amateur sports
and really the focus on that. We don’t expect to be hosting an Olympic Games in our community
anytime in the near future. We’ve made some bids on March Madness in the early rounds
but really our focus is on participatory sports – the sports that bring Mom and Dad and
the kids that play in these various sports into our community and staying in our hotels,
and spending money in our community – more so than the spectator sports.
Ultimately it’s nearly an $8 million industry in youth and amateur sports, and the interesting
thing about youth and amateur sports that we’ve found in the industry – and it’s
studied by the National Association of Sports Commissions – is we’re coming out of this
recession that started in about 2007, about when we formed as well, happenstance I think.
But we’re coming out of this, and youth and amateur sports or sports tourism and sports
travel had not seen the same downturn that leisure sports might see or business travel
as businesses pull in a little bit and not spend as much.
What we saw with youth and amateur sports is that as parents and in participatory sports,
we want our kids to be able to learn the values that sports bring us. And we want to use our
last discretionary dollars to get them out from in front of the TVs and really participate
in these great community and competitive events. And so where these other tourism dollars fell
off, sports tourism really held steady and that’s an important fact to note in looking
at what we can do in our community to grab some of those dollars and benefit from some
of these new dollars that would come in.
Across the country we’re seeing an increase in the number of sports commissions being
formed, and again, I think that plays to the last point that I made. Over 100 sports commissions
now, and where there’s not a sports commission doing that work there’s a convention or
visitor’s bureau, like our partner in Experience Grand Rapids before we were formed and really
looking at what they can do to try and attract some of that business into their community.
There’s many different resources on a national basis that we turn to to generate some interest
in our community but also to learn from and develop new strategies for attracting sports
tourism. And the National Association of Sports Commissions is one of those. We’re a member
of that organization. It formed in 1992 around a handful of cities that just shared ideas
and best practices of what they can do as a community, and those various communities,
to bring some of these dollars in. And it’s grown from then to about 600 members now that
include the CBBs that I talked about, the growth of these sports commissions; but they
also include these national governing bodies, these sports rights holders. And it partners
up these two organizations so that they can talk about what works in a community to host
these different events, but also just learning from each other and growing as a sports destination.
The middle bullet point is of course an alphabet soup, and we’ve got all kinds of organizations
that we can go after: the United States Olympic Committee being one of those, the United States
Specialty Sports Association, Michigan High School Athletic Association, NCAA, NAI, AAU.
And when you think about the mission of the United States Olympic Committee, and I’m
going to paraphrase, they really represent the Olympic and Paralympic athletes to sustain
a high level of competition and inspire Americans. And I think that’s the other benefit we
see from sports. Our drive is economic impact and economic benefit to our community but
it adds quality of life as well. And we want to inspire people in our community around
sport, and sport has a way of doing that.
There’s various industry conferences that we’ll attend. On a national basis throughout
the country NASC holds their own, it’s the Sports Symposium. We’re working to try and
bring that conference to Grand Rapids so that those numbers of people will come and learn
best practices, just like CEO for Cities did here, but also the Sports Governing Body so
that they can see what our area has to offer. And many other sports events – USOC Sports
Link, they hold that along with their General Assembly and bring their national sports governing
bodies together. And as destinations we’re allowed to attend and I had a couple of staff
members that are just coming back from that conference out in Colorado Springs. So some
great resources nationally to try and learn best practices and develop those relationships.
To be successful as a destination and attract these national sports governing bodies there’s
many different criteria that we need to focus on, and that we have to be aware of of what
the needs are. And it really begins as you can imagine in having quality venues and the
location of those venues. And I’m going to talk a little bit more about that and the
importance of what we’re doing around that in a little bit.
Certainly sponsorship potential – I think it’s been said that Grand Rapids is the
second highest philanthropic community, second to Salt Lake City and that means a lot. We
see it in the support of the events that we bring to the table, the corporate community,
the Huntington Banks and so many others that really help bring these events into our community
and help make them a success. And that’s an important component as tournament rights
holders and organizers are looking to come into a community.
Certainly you need to have the infrastructure, the hotel rooms, the restaurants in close
proximity to your competition venue. Local media coverage – all of these sports are
trying to grow in their own right and they want to get some exposure, and really gain
in awareness on their own in terms of what they’re doing. Ease of access to the city
– fortunately we’ve seen with the Gerald R Ford International Airport some growth in
air travel and airlines and carriers. Southwest coming in is a huge benefit to our area. And
so ease of access, whether it’s by air or by car certainly is something I think we can
promote highly as Grand Rapids and West Michigan.
And then there’s the volunteer needs and as I mentioned the restaurants and things
to do. So those are all key components when we’re looking to bid on an event that we
have to keep in mind to put into a package and talk about in attracting these various
athletic events into our community.
I’m going to switch gears a little bit and talk about tourism in the state of Michigan.
I think many of you if not all of you are familiar with what Travel Michigan and the
MEDC have done in the past four, five years with A Pure Michigan campaign. And this is
a campaign that has truly grown our ability as a state to attract tourism into Michigan.
People across the country as we go out are aware of the Pure Michigan campaign.
And this is a breakdown of the ability for Travel Michigan through the Governor and the
legislature and the dollars that they’ve been able to secure in promoting our state
as a tourism destination and what they use those dollars towards. And the bulk of it
goes into a national cable buy, $13 million. And that’s a big piece that really creates
the awareness we need as we go out as a destination marketing organization to say “Hey, come
to Michigan. Here’s what we have to offer.” And this campaign kind of paves the way for
us.
The budget as compared to other states, you can expect some of those other states to be
up there – Hawaii, California. But certainly you see Michigan at number six with that $25
million. They used to be at about $5 million and that extra $20 million has had a huge
impact. It’s risen Michigan to the top of the echelon in terms of what we can do to
attract these new dollars into our state where the average state tourism budget is about
$14.5 million.
These are some of the stations that if you frequent on the cable network you may have
seen the Pure Michigan commercials. And really what those commercials have done through Tim
Allen’s voice and the pace of the commercial and the marketing campaign, they’re really
attracting people to what Michigan has to offer.
And this has been the impact over 2012 numbers of what the cable buys and the awareness factor.
As expected in the regional market a far greater awareness, but on the national market that’s
not a small number. When you talk about Michigan and the place of destinations and places to
go, we’re not a Hawaii, we’re not a California or a Florida but people are seeing the opportunity
that exists and the natural resources that we have through this marketing campaign.
So Michigan.org as a website – we all have gotten into the technology of the world and
our websites communicate much of our messaging – has risen to the top. In fact for the
past six years they have been the leading destination or tourism website. You see some
of the second place and third places you might expect, I’m not sure what Arkansas is doing.
I can’t say I’ve ever driven through… Sorry if anyone’s a Razorback fan but that’s
impressive, and that’s important to measure and look at in terms of awareness as well.
And here are some of the results, again 2012 numbers – that is motivated 3.8 million
trips, 2.3 million, again you could expect from the immediate Midwest region but then
1.5 million from outside the region. And the dollars that those visitors are spending in
Michigan and what they’re spending in sales tax; the jobs that it supports. The tourism
industry is a huge industry in Michigan, and the jobs that are created and sustained through
these new visitors coming into our communities is important. And then you see the return
on investment. It’s not a bad return when you talk about $5.76 returned for every dollar
that’s spent in that $25 million budget.
We do a lot of measurement in this industry on hotel occupancy, on heads in beds, so certainly
that’s an important number to look at. Here you see the impact of the Pure Michigan campaign
that it’s had on hotel occupancy. The rev par numbers are numbers that hotels use to
measure their success and profitability, but it’s a great measurement. And in fact in
Grand Rapids and through our partners in Experience Grand Rapids that measure these numbers we’re
seeing better than 60% occupancy and we’re leading both the state and the nation in terms
of our occupancy percentage rates. So that’s a great testament on behalf of the work that
we’re doing and the work of our partners in Experience Grand Rapids.
We’re seeing Pure Michigan get involved into sports. I mentioned NASCAR Nation and
the millions of people that follow these cars that only make a left turn for three hours
and it’s pretty interesting. But the Michigan International Speedway in Jackson, Michigan,
has become the Pure Michigan 400. And it’s just brand placement. It’s getting eyeballs
to see that brand and carry that brand through.
And I’m able to keep this slide in because I stayed up late and saw that the Tigers won
as Tim alluded to. But also the brand placement at Comerica Park and what they’ve used in
placing that in key positions right behind home plate, on the Tigers’ dugout – those
are great brand placements to keep that message in front of people.
So what we’ve done in the youth and amateur sports tourism industry as the West Michigan
Sports Commission and other destinations throughout Michigan is we’ve formed a marketing collaborative.
There’s now ten cities and I know there’s other cities looking to join that we partner
together, we pool our marketing dollars. And MEDC and Travel Michigan have come to the
table to match those dollars and we’re carrying on that brand, that Pure Michigan brand that
has done so well to coin it “Pure Michigan Sports”; and to go outside the state and
market our state as a viable destination for youth and amateur sports. And we do that through
the various national industry trade shows and the different sales calls that we make
together. And you can see some of those cities that are involved.
So let me talk about the West Michigan Sports Commission. Again, hopefully I’ve made the
case for our formation, why it’s important to capture some of those dollars or many of
those dollars that come into the state, and try and attract more of those new dollars
into the state. As Tim had mentioned we formed in 2007. It was through a public/private partnership
led by Peter Secchia, a well-known business leader in the community and Former Ambassador
to Italy; our partners in Experience Grand Rapids; Kent County.
And it’s really looking at that measurement of the hotel occupancy because that’s tied
to a hotel room tax and a lodging excise tax that as you stay in a hotel in Kent County,
if you only stay there and pay the room rate and the room rate’s $100 you’re leaving
with a bill of I believe it’s $115. So there’s a 6% state sales tax that of course goes to
the state and then there is, maybe it’s $114 – then there’s 8% where 4% of that
is a hotel assessment… No, it is $115 because 5% of that, I’m doing quick math up here
– 5% of that is a Kent County lodging excise tax. So these are dollars that are going into
those coffers to again build upon our infrastructure that we can offer this tourism industry but
also market our destination for tourism and sports tourism as well.
We’ve got a Board of 57, currently 15 key Board members. The rest are At-Large Advisory
Council members and that’s important. We’ve got people that are really driving the policies
and procedures and the strategies of the Sports Commission, and then we have other people
who have really embraced who we are as an organization and have gone out in the community
and spread our word. And in fact I know I’ve got a lot of Board members here and Advisory
Council members here today, and if they would stand up just briefly as well as our staff
and you can recognize them for the work that they do.
[Applause]
Mike Guswiler: We have a wonderful internship program that’s started really since our
inception. You can find information on it on our website but we’ve been able to tap
into all the universities in the area, and even outside of the area, and give a great
opportunity and experience for these students to really see what this tourism industry is
all about and also benefit from some great experience and contribute to some exciting
events.
The mission of the Sports Commission I won’t read to you but I highlighted some of the
key words. We work as a destination marketing organization to promote this destination,
and our effort is to try and host many of these youth and amateur sports tournaments.
And I hit on some of those keys: it’s really about economic impact. We want to enhance
our economy through visitor spending and we want to add to our quality of life.
Some key directives that have come out – like any organization does, in our formative years
through some strategic planning – are listed here. And these have kind of risen to the
surface and driven who we are and what we do as an organization. The top two as you
can imagine I’ve been repeating is economic development and then adding to our quality
of life. And while those can be tough to measure in terms of adding to the quality of life
certainly we have measurements in economic development and I’ll touch on that. But
we want to be the go-to organization for the various youth and amateur sports clubs and
organizations that exist throughout the area but also for people that were just aware and
passionate about a sports tournament that wanted to see it come to Grand Rapids. We
wanted to be that go-to source and we’ve been doing that over the course of the past
six years.
And then we wanted to create our own event, something that answered our mission and our
call, and Tim touched on it in the Meijer State Games and Michigan. And I’ll talk
a little bit more about that and then lead into a discussion of building our sport infrastructure.
So what have we done to date? We’re now in our seventh year of operation. We’ve
worked with, assisted, or brought in more than 300 sporting events and tournaments and
with those numbers and those events we’ve attracted over 315,000 athlete and spectator
visitors. And we’ve generated nearly $100 million in direct visitor spending from those
visitors that have come through our community.
This next slide shows some of those events that we’ve been involved in. One of our
first events was the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions that was held at DeVos’
Place. Floyd Mayweather Jr. contributed and underwrote that event, being a Golden Glove
Champion himself and really giving back to his community. But NCAA DI ice hockey that
we’ve held at Van Andel Arena, the Transplant Games of America – a very special event
that we resurrected as a community and I think that’s important to note. And going back
to the collaboration and the work that our community does to partner together, the Transplant
Games represent the importance of organ donation and continuing that gift of life.
And we were able to resurrect that when the National Kidney Foundation decided that they
were no longer going to put that on after a couple of decades, and we formed together.
And our medical community, it was led by Spectrum Health, assisted by St. Mary’s Health as
well, and a local organizing committee that was committed to putting this event on. And
it was a special event held at Grand Valley State University over the course of a week
and it really meant the world to these individuals that had a second chance at life but also
to these donor families that lost a loved one but they donated their organs.
And Bill Ryan who’s a Board member of ours, is the President and CEO of Transplant Games
of America now and Bill continues to carry that torch as a donor dad; but also in really
carrying the message of the importance of donor donation in insuring that everyone get
registered in many different states. So it’s a wonderful even that we’re able to carry
on that really applied to our mission but extended it that much more.
And then some additional USOC Sports Governing Bodies in figure skating, judo, table tennis.
I didn’t see Del Sweeris but if you know Del he was going to be here this morning,
but Del is a table tennis champion. He and his wife, he’s the husband of Connie Sweeris.
They’re both inducted into the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame; they’re also in the
National Table Tennis Hall of Fame. And their son just this week, Todd Sweeris, who’s
a two-time Olympian was inducted into the Grand Rapids Sports Hall of Fame. So those
are the type of people we need in our community as we go after these events, to tap into their
knowledge and their expertise to help us bring these in.
This bar chart shows really our growth over a period of three years in events, economic
impact and as well in visitors that we’re able to bring into the community. And so we’ve
seen great growth in all that we’re able to do and again, I contribute that to our
excellent team and staff and to our Board and to our community that we’re able to
grow at such a fast pace.
I’m just going to walk through quickly a measurement of visitor spending and how we
look at economic impact as another measurement beyond just hotel rooms. In looking at a key
event that occurs every weekend, first weekend in June is the Michigan Junior Volleyball
State Championships. They’re up to more than 450 teams and when you think about those
teams and the makeup of those teams, most of them are middle school or high school girls.
So they travel with their families, they stay a couple of nights.
If we assume the room rate and the amount that they might spend on three meals a day
for the family and you add that up it comes up to about $463 for the family. You multiply
that by the number of families per team, which is ten to twelve girls per team, and then
we want to take out the locals because local spending are dollars that could elsewhere
be spent in our community. And so we want to factor that in – we really want to only
look at new dollars or visitor dollars into our community. And so multiplying 2800 families
by that average spending this is $1.3 million over the period of a weekend into our community
of new dollars that without this tournament wouldn’t have been spent here.
This is a brief video that we made a couple of years ago but it really gives a good visual
of some of the events that we’ve been able to attract. So I’m going to go ahead and
have that played for you.
[plays video 0:39:22 – 0:40:22]
Mike Guswiler: So some great growth. We continue to grow and obviously we have to update our
video.
Here’s some major events that we have coming in 2014. I think these are noteworthy – Tim
certainly hit on one of them but starting with that first event, the Western Collegiate
Hockey Association. We’re a town of great hockey, of course the Calder Cup Champions.
If you were in the Van Andel Arena during any of those final games it was electric,
and that’s the experience and the atmosphere that sports can generate in a community.
Well, the shakedown of the hockey conferences with CCHA going away changed the landscape
somewhat of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. They really were looking for
a home on even years or odd years between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
They really wanted to come here; they felt that this was a strong community. And the
makeup of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association includes four Michigan schools in Ferris,
sorry Tim, but President Haas, maybe we can get Grand Valley into this conference. But
Ferris, Lake Superior State, Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech, and we felt really good
about that – about hosting the final five with those Michigan schools and the impact
that that could have, and we really want to look to make that a longstanding tradition
of collegiate hockey in Grand Rapids at Van Andel Arena.
Tim mentioned the NCAA DII Track and Field Championships. The partnership that we have
with Grand Valley State University is terrific. The fortunate ability to have such a great
institution and a great athletic program in our community is extremely helpful as we go
and work on attracting so many of these different events. But I know Tim’s Athletic Team is
here. They’ve been great partners and great to work with and we’re excited for what
the DII Track and Field Championships will bring both to Grand Valley and to our Community.
USA Triathlon Long Course Championships – we’ve worked with our Tris for Health Partners and
the Grand Rapids Triathlon. USA Table Tennis, the US Open is coming back for a third time
and it’s interesting, as you look at that event – when we first bid on that we were
pulling it out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Now the reason they were in Las Vegas is it was easy
to get to internationally. This draws competitors from 22 different countries. But in Las Vegas
as you can imagine they’re just now known, they’re not seen – they’re lost in all
the lights and flash.
So we really sold them on leading a legacy of table tennis in our community and really
the history of table tennis through the Sweeris’. So we were able to secure that and we’ve
had great success to the point where one of their international competitors, and the sport
of table tennis is really growing in the US. But in other countries, China as you can imagine,
even Europe, this is a major sport. This is an Olympic sport. It’s a top sport in many
of these countries and we were able to really attract these key players and these top national
players and international players.
And Georgina Pota, the Women’s Champion, was quoted as saying that of all the places
she’s traveled, and she’s traveled across the world, that this was the most beautiful.
And that’s a huge testament to Grand Rapids and what we’re able to do as an organization
and as a community.
And then of course US Rowing, the National Master’s Championship – the first time
that we’ll have a national rowing event in our community on the Grand River and using
the Riverside Park.
The Meijer State Games in Michigan Tim had touched on. This is our signature event. It’s
an event that because of the expertise of staff members and the knowledge base that
they brought to the table that we were able to put together, and also because of our corporate
community partners certainly in Meijer and many other corporate partners. And it is a
form of Olympics for our community. It’s an Olympic-style sports festival open to all
ages and all abilities and in fact we’ve had ages of 4 to 84 participate. And there’s
30 other states that run these type of state games and sports festivals, and it really
gets people active in their communities. It gets them out and gets them participating
in a healthy environment.
The Meijer State Games, its fourth year just concluded. The fourth Summer Games. It attracted
over 6000 athletes from 72 different counties in Michigan’s 83 counties, so hitting nearly
90% of the state in participation and making it truly a statewide event and embraced across
the state. Two dozen regional sporting venues and over 500 volunteers hitting that key for
volunteers, and we can always use more volunteers for the different events that we have, but
about $2 million in direct visitor spending over these three or four days that we host
these athletes in our community.
Here you see a slide, a little difficult to read but about 35 different sporting events
that were offered this past summer. This really gives a wide breadth of people the ability
to really participate in a lot of different events and you don’t have to be an expert.
It’s not about being an elite athlete; it’s about participating in something special and
something exciting. And it’s really that opening ceremony and that Olympic feel that
brings all these athletes and families together. Here you see some pictures from our opening
ceremonies a couple of years ago at Fifth Third Ballpark; the parade of athletes, the
lighting of the torch by Glenn Meyers, an Olympic archer. It was lit by a couple of
special guests that we had that year, Coach Mark Dantonio and Coach Tom Izzo – and then
the shooting of that flame to light our cauldron and really kick off the festivities and the
ceremonies as these athletes went out and competed for gold, silver, bronze medals and
just for the spirit of competitiveness around these different venues across the county and
the region.
So with the growth of the Meijer State Games, and we’re going to be making an announcement
– our Executive Director of the Meijer State Games Eric Engelbarts will be making an announcement
next Tuesday on adding some winter games. It’ll be the first year of the Winter Games
this coming February. We’ll talk about the dates and the sports lineup but I’ve got
a quick preview of a video to show you on what is in store.
[plays video 0:47:24 – 0:48:38]
Mike Guswiler: So look for some exciting info to be unveiled next week as we hold a press
conference and talk more about the exciting Winter Games.
I’m going to switch gears again and talk about the future of the Sports Commission,
the future of our region and Grand Rapids in talking about and building up our sport
infrastructure. And I’m going to try to get through this fairly quickly so I can leave
some time for Q&A.
But this is a very exciting time in our history and in our development as a Sports Commission
and as a community in talking about really building up the sports facilities and creating
a place and a destination for sports.
The Grand Rapids Whitewater Project, while it’s not a project that we’re leading
is a project that we certainly embrace and that we’re backing and supporting in restoring
the rapids to the Grand River. It means far more than just sporting events – it means
business and tourism and development along the riverside. And so if you want more information
certainly the Grand Rapids Whitewater Group and their website can offer that at www.grandrapidswhitewater.org.
I mentioned the US Rowing and the first national Master’s Championship, the first national
event that will have rowing on the Grand River. We’re working in partnership with the Grand
Rapids Rowing Association that runs a great learn to row program. But it’s really building
up our sport infrastructure, building up our river so that it can be a national-caliber
rowing institution. And we’re working with them and the community to do just that.
West Michigan Rugby has been a group since we formed that we’ve been working with and
promoting the growth of that sport in our community, and they continue to look at building
and creating a championship atmosphere for rugby as that sport grows. But the campaign
that we really got involved in and a couple of our key Board members – Dan DeVos and
Don Lubbers that they have led is the Everyone Wins campaign. We realized early on the importance
of outdoor field sports and what it can mean to our community and we lacked some contiguous
tournament-quality fields. And our Board really took it to heart to make a change in that
direction and create a baseball/softball complex that was unparalleled in our region and in
our state certainly.
And so we went about creating a campaign to raise the dollars to create that premier complex,
but what happened out of that throughout that campaign and we were able to raise for an
$8 million project $7 million – and construction costs were able to come down so we’re about
$0.5 million away from really closing that gap – is we had an individual locally come
to the table whose son had some physical disabilities and yet played on a baseball team that he
coached. And he saw the opportunities kind of lessening for his son who used a walker
to be able to get around and participate in the sport of baseball.
And he did some discovering and some research and found that a Miracle Field Program existed
out there, and he approached our Board to say “Hey, can that be a part of your complex
so that we can make it inclusive, make it available for these disabled players to really
play in an able-bodied environment?” And so we embraced the Miracle Field and that’s
now part of the complex, in fact has already opened and they’ve held three weekends of
games. This coming Saturday, tomorrow, will be their last weekend. They look for the community
to get involved as well.
But also archery came to the table and we worked with partners in Plainfield Township,
a property that surrounded the 79 acres that we found in northern Kent County to build
a baseball/softball complex. And the West Michigan Archery Center is being built in
that complex area.
Mountain biking and that organization, the West Michigan Mountain Biking Alliance, a
couple of years ago unveiled a plan to build 50 new miles of trails in our community over
the next five years. Well, I think they’ve either surpassed or are close to surpassing
that number because of their efforts and their passion for the sport.
BMX and the opportunity to bring USA BMX-quality tracks into our area has been led by West
Michigan BMX and so we’re going to see BMX as part of this complex; and then soccer through
Plainfield Township.
So ultimately what’s happened is this master plan, and I know this is difficult to see,
but we’ve got our 79 acres where we’re building in a couple of phases a baseball/softball
complex with a championship field, a Miracle Field and then other quads here to really
attract that travel baseball and softball and those new dollars that will come into
our community. We’ve got mountain bike trails that are already established and supported
by Wolverine Worldwide and named the Mural Trails; and then we’ve got the archery over
here in this corner and BMX and a couple soccer fields. That’s going on right now and I’ll
show you some schematics and artist’s renderings but also really get into the construction.
We tapped into the GVSU Economic Department to run some studies and identify the feasibility
of the economic impact of this facility. And through different feasibility studies there
were some conservative numbers that were utilized and some maybe maximum numbers, but over a
five-year total more than $12 million, upwards of $25 million that will be brought into our
community because of the tournaments we’re able to bring in. And that was just specific
to baseball and softball.
This is in northern Kent County as I mentioned off of 131. You can see in the center of the
page the closed landfill. Our property is just to the east of that. There’s [Ameyer]
right off of 131 that’s at the ten-mile exit and then Rockford would be to the further
east.
We had to move nearly 500,000 cubic yards of earth to flatten that and get to a point
where we could build baseball and softball fields on that, but we were able to do that
with our partners in OAK and Progressive AE. And here’s some additional photos that show,
and leading up to today we’re greater than 50% to completion with the light poles going
in, adding the final touches to a championship field and a canopy structure that will accommodate
1000 spectators and bleacher seating, and more along the grass areas, the additional
quads and then of course the Miracle Field that I mentioned.
I encourage you to get out, check that out – it’s up on Ten Mile Road, certainly
the Miracle Field but also what we have going on. It’s exciting to be building this community
asset that will attract these new dollars into our community and continue to build up
our infrastructure but also the visitors and the sense of place and place making that we’re
doing around sports tourism.
So really in closing ultimately we want to become Sports City, USA. We’ve received
the moniker Beer City, USA, and we’re not far from it. And the efforts of the West Michigan
Sports Commission, the efforts that we have our Board and our community doing around youth
and amateur sports tourism, and we hope that you’ll all become more engaged and excited
about what we’re doing. And if you are engaged and want to get more involved there’s many
ways to do that.
And with that I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Huntington Breakfast
Lecture Series and I appreciate our host in Grand Valley State University, and for all
of you for coming. I’m certainly happy to answer any questions if we have some time
for that but thank you again.
[Applause]
Mike Guswiler: A question back here.
Audience: The question I have is athletes in these types of places over in Grand Rapids,
how do you continue to collaborate with these other regional suppliers of sports and continue
while you’re competing with them. (Inaudible). How would you balance that cooperation?
Mike Guswiler: So the question was in building this facility how do we collaborate with other
communities that have like facilities and how is it a competitive atmosphere as well?
I touched on of course the work that we’re doing around Pure Michigan Sports, and as
we go outside of the state to try and attract and promote our destination as a state. But
when it comes to in-state it’s really all gloves are off, and there’s no question
that we look at Battle Creek and Bailey Park as competition. I think there’s no question
that with the quality facility that we’re building that we will pull some business from
them. And I think when it comes down to that, and although we’re named the West Michigan
Sports Commission really our geographical boundaries extend to Holland, Grand Haven,
Muskegon and Greater Grand Rapids. And so that’s where we’re focused on in bringing
visitor dollars and attracting these tournaments into.
So it does become a competitive atmosphere. I think in the growth of youth baseball and
softball, and it’s been shown that it’s staying in the top five of travel sports,
that that is something that there’s still enough interest and teams that want to play
in quality tournaments that both will fare very well.
Unfortunately I went on so long that I don’t have time for any other questions, but my
contact information is up here. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have other
questions or if you’re interested in more information.
[Applause]
Bill Smith: Alright, stay right here, Mike. Thank you. I too want to thank Huntington
Bank and the Alumni Association and others here at the University for providing these
opportunities for our community, for our faculty, staff, and students as well. These are very
contemporary opportunities.
And I also wanted to say that yes, it is about the quality of life that we have in West Michigan.
And Mike and the Commission are providing a catalyst for that to happen right here.
And I think that one of the opportunities I see here is for activities that are family-friendly,
and indeed most of what you had pointed out here deal with quality of life but also have
that sentiment that we have the quality of life here because we can attract our families
here – not just for work but also for learning and for living and for playing. So with that
I would like to again congratulate Mike and the Commission. Please recognize them one
more time.
[Applause]
Bill Smith: And on behalf of Grand Valley State University, just a memento of this day,
and thank you for kicking off this first event in our new Seidman Center. Thank you, sir.
Everyone have a great weekend, thank you.
[Applause]
[End of Audio – 1:00:26]