By Jeff Gilder Part 1 of 3
Over the past year, I’ve attended multiple major sports tourism conferences across the country — rooms filled with DMOs, TDAs, sports commissions, facility operators, and event rights holders.
What’s striking isn’t the enthusiasm.
It’s the disparity.
On one side of the room are organizations aggressively building sports ecosystems — data-driven, media-aware, performance-focused.
On the other side are destinations that clearly understand sports tourism is important (otherwise they wouldn’t attend)… yet still operate as if events are simply facility rentals with hotel blocks attached.
The gap is real.
And it’s widening.
A $128 Billion Sector — And Growing
According to Sports ETA and Tourism Economics, participatory sports tourism alone generated $128 billion in total economic impact in 2023.
Just two years earlier, in 2021, that number stood at $91.8 billion.
That represents roughly 39% growth in two years — even accounting for post-pandemic recovery effects.
To put this in perspective:
Total U.S. travel and tourism activity runs in the trillions annually. Sports tourism now represents roughly 5% of the nation’s total travel economic output — a meaningful, measurable slice of the entire tourism ecosystem.
And that figure doesn’t fully account for the spectator side of sports travel, which itself generates tens of billions in direct spending and over 100 million travel experiences per year.
Sports tourism is no longer niche.
It is infrastructure.
The Part Most Destinations Still Miss
Here’s what I rarely hear discussed in those conference halls:
Event media value.
I wear two hats.
With one of my companies — Ultimate Long Drive — I operate as an event rights holder. Our events do not generate the same “heads in beds” numbers as massive youth tournaments with 200 teams.
But what we do generate — in multiples — is media exposure.
Streaming distribution.
Digital impressions.
Social amplification.
Geo-targeted retargeting.
Archived content.
Long-tail discoverability.
The media footprint of even a mid-sized event today can dwarf its immediate lodging footprint.
And yet, in conversation after conversation, the evaluation framework still defaults to:
How many rooms?
How many nights?
What was ADR?
Those metrics matter.
But they are incomplete.
The Disconnect Inside Organizations
What’s even more interesting is this:
In many destinations, there are departments that track media impact.
There are teams measuring impressions, digital reach, and brand visibility.
But often, those teams operate separately from the event recruitment or sports development side.
The event team measures room nights.
The marketing team measures impressions.
And rarely does someone connect the two.
The result?
Event media value is left floating — unaccounted for in funding decisions, undervalued in partnership discussions, and disconnected from economic modeling.
Sports Tourism Is Not Just a Weekend Transaction
Sports tourism now produces:
-
Over 200 million sports-related travel trips annually in the United States.
-
Tens of billions in direct spending.
-
Verified participant data and ZIP code capture.
-
Multi-day stays tied to structured schedules.
But what makes it even more powerful is what happens after the event.
Sports travelers:
-
Explore the destination beyond the field of play.
-
Extend stays to experience local attractions.
-
Develop familiarity with the area.
-
Return later for leisure trips.
-
Recommend the destination to team networks and family circles.
A tournament weekend often becomes a future vacation pipeline.
That multiplier effect rarely appears on a standard economic impact report.
But it’s real.
Growth Is Not Slowing
Market research projects strong double-digit growth rates in sports tourism spending over the next decade.
Participation-based travel continues to expand.
Facility investments are accelerating.
Youth and amateur sports remain deeply embedded in American family life.
The industry is not plateauing.
It is evolving.
And the destinations that adapt to this evolution — integrating media, digital amplification, and performance-based evaluation — will separate themselves quickly from those that do not.
The Real Divide
After sitting in those conference rooms for the past year, here’s what I’ve come to believe:
There are two kinds of destinations emerging.
-
Those who see sports tourism as economic development strategy.
-
Those who still treat it as event logistics.
The first group asks:
How can we leverage this for long-term brand lift, repeat visitation, and digital exposure?
The second group asks:
How many rooms did it book?
Both questions matter.
But only one reflects where the industry is headed.
This Series
This article is the first in a series exploring:
-
The real scale of sports tourism.
-
The repeat visitation engine few measure properly.
-
The structural lag holding some regions back.
-
And the opportunity cost of ignoring event media value.
Sports tourism is not waiting for alignment.
It is scaling where it is welcomed.
The only question is whether destinations will connect the dots — or continue measuring a 2026 industry with a 1995 framework.