SportsTravel Podcast

If you went back to 1997, you would find a sports-event industry that was truly in its infancy. The National Association of Sports Commissions, now known as Sports ETA, was only a few years old itself at the time. It was a few years prior to that when Tim Schneider started to identify something interesting in the other magazine that he published called Association News. Why were so many sports organizations reading a magazine about association management, he wondered? The answer was that they were on the hunt for destinations and venues to host their events, and no other publication seemed to have information about those available locations and venues.

Like the true entrepreneur he is, Schneider decided to come up with a product to fix that. While the magazine took a few years to materialize, that innovative thinking eventually led to issue one of SportsTravel, published 25 years ago in January 1997. In the years since, the magazine has grown with new departments and features, and has successfully made the leap to the digital world as well. The industry it covers, of course, has also experienced incredible growth and evolution. Whereas a handful of destinations at the time dedicated themselves to sports marketing and offering their available venues for sports events, hundreds of destinations do that today, and do it well. And the number of events and event organizers has only grown in that time, too. Schneider guided the growth of the magazine and you could make the case that he helped guide the growth of the industry itself, leading to his being inducted into the very first class of the Sports ETA Hall of Fame in 2017.

In this conversation, we talk with Schneider about how SportsTravel began, how it has evolved and what destinations and sports organizations should be focusing on now as they chart the next 25 years of the industry.

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The Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis was the biggest gathering in women’s college basketball since the pandemic began more than two years ago. And in the light of last year’s NCAA gender equity report, all eyes were on the destination to make sure that women’s sports were celebrated not only on the court and in the Target Center, but that the experience extended beyond the arena to every detail including how the city and NCAA partners treated the event — including where people stayed during the weekend.

Julius Robinson, the senior vice president and global brand leader for Marriott Hotels, joined SportsTravel managing editor Matt Traub on location in Minneapolis to discuss how Marriott plans for big events like the Women’s Final Four, what it’s like working with the NCAA as its official hotel partner, how important sports-related travel has been to Marriott's business the past two years, sports tourism trends the hotel chain has seen lately and what the one big sports event he still would like to check off his bucket list.

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There is nothing quite as valuable to sports organizations and destinations that host their events than data. And one of the leading organizations that has been diving into data analysis for years is the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. The association, whose members include sporting goods and fitness brands, manufacturers, retailers and maerkters, has one of the deepest data pools in the country, annually surveying Americans 6 years old and up about their levels of participation in a list of sports that now tops 120 different activities. Every year, the association issues a Topline Report detailing which of those sports and activities are on the upswing and which are headed down. Toss in a worldwide pandemic that has fundamentally shifted the way everyone participates in the activities they love and you’ve got a data set that is ripe for analysis and contemplation for all who organize sports events at all levels.

Tom Cove has been the assocaition’s longtime president and CEO and his take on why some sports are doing better than others is always worth a listen. In this episode, we discuss with him those activities that are faring well and why, what impact the Olympics is having on sports that are part of the official program, what sports-event organizers should be thinking about when it comes to retaining athletes, and how age and income can determine not only your level of activity but the types of things you might go out and try. It’s a fascingaitng conversation and one with considerable takeaways for anyone who has their hand in the sports events industry.

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When the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association announced that it was moving its annual men's and women's conference basketball tournament to Baltimore after 13 years in Charlotte, North Carolina, it sent shockwaves shockwaves through the collegiate landscape. The event, which attracts about 100,000 people with an estimated economic impact of $50 million has become about much more than basketball or even economic development. The ancillary events surrounding the tournament that crowns champions from 12 Historically Black Colleges and Universities is a career expo, a party, a reunion, a cultural exploration, an experience. At the helm of the conference is someone who has seen her own success on the court and off — Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams. When she was hired nine years ago, she was the first Black women to lead a major collegiate conference. Today, she is one of four, progress that she says is not satisfying enough.

[article_sidebar]Before joining the CIAA, McWilliams spent nearly a decade at the NCAA managing NCAA championships, including both the men’s and women’s Division I Basketball tournaments. As a student, she was also a two-sport athlete at Hampton and was a member of the Hampton University 1988 NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship team, freshmen player of the year in 1988 and player of the year for CIAA volleyball in 1990.

With that vast background, McWilliams knows what it takes to produce a successful tournament. With the 2022 tournament set for February 22–24 at Royal Farms Arena, she and the CIAA have high hopes for the event's new home. In this conversation with SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub, McWilliams discusses the move of the event from Charlotte, what has made the tournament such a tourism draw, the progress in DEI efforts at the highest end of collegiate sports and the future of college athletics.

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The Sports and Fitness Industry Association has made it official in its latest trends report: pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the country. Over the past two years, participation is up 39 percent, including an increase of more than 20 percent from 2019 to 2020 when the pandemic helped drive the sport’s appeal. Leading the charge on the sport’s growth is USA Pickleball, which boasts 50,000 members and a robust events series that is also gaining momentum. Stu Upson, a veteran of the sports-events industry has been CEO since December 2020 and is leading the organization into the future with new sponsorship deals, broadcast deals for its largest events and a steady hand as the sport navigates questions of a gap in venues and a rapid rise of manufacturers and others wanting in on the action. In addition, professional leagues are sprouting, including some that are inking impressive hosting deals in some of the largest sports venues in the country.

In this conversation with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Upson discusses what has accounted for the sport’s growth in popularity, when venues will catch up with demand, what the event landscape looks like and what the biggest threats may be to the continued power of pickleball to gain new followers and fans.

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Skiing and snowboarding have always been among the spotlight sports at the Olympic Winter Games and the 2022 Games in Beijing will be no different with Mikaela Shiffrin and Chloe Kim being among the biggest names for Team USA. But getting to Beijing and passing strict COVID protocols has been a hot topic in the Olympic world, among many others as China hosts another major sporting event. Named as the president and chief executive officer for U.S. Ski and Snowboard in September, Sophie Goldschmidt joined the national governing body off a stint as CEO of the World Surf League, with international experience ranging from the NBA to the WTA Tour and the Rugby Football Union.

Goldschmidt joined SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub recently for a conversation about the logistical hurdles that athletes will face to get to Beijing, health and safety protocols the organization has implemented this winter ahead of the Olympics, being the first female president and CEO of the national governing body, balancing the needs of high-performance athletes and growing the sport at the grassroots level, and more. 

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The Ironman Group has been a leader in mass participation events for years. The company’s portfolio now extends well beyond the Ironman triathlon series itself and includes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, the multi-day road cycling event series Haute Route and a strategic partnership with UTMB Group, which organizes ultra-trail running events. The company has also been expanding its virtual events during the pandemic and recently acquired the indoor virtual cycling app, FulGaz, to further push into the ever-growing world of connected fitness.

After Ironman's in-person races dropped off the calendar at the start of the pandemic in 2020, they began coming back in 2021 and expectations are high for the 2022 calendar. In this conversation between Ironman Group CEO Andrew Messick and SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Messick discusses how the race series brought back its events, the outlook for the coming year and how the organization uses its own proprietary CRM system to help determine future host cities. We also discuss some of the Ironman series' latest new host cities, including locations in Alaska and Oregon — firsts for the series. And we explore some of the biggest opportunities ahead in the world of mass participation events from one of the leaders in the space.

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Indianapolis has hosted eight NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Fours and is known as one of the best college sports cities in the country. On Monday, January 10, it will for the first time host the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, becoming the first cold-weather city to host the event and the first city that does not have a regular bowl game to host the CFP. Susan Baughman has extensive experience in making big events special in Indianapolis as the senior vice president of the Indiana Sports Corp for more than two decades before taking the role as president for the CFP’s local host committee in Indianapolis. SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talked with Baughman about planning for the CFP title game, what goes into the local leadup for such an event, how the CFP differs from the NCAA’s Final Four and much more.

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As chief operating officer of Chicago Event Management, which organizes the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Mike Nishi has been the logistics lead for the race since 1990. What started out with 6,000 runners has grown to the one of the largest marathons in the world. In 2019, more than 45,000 people finished the race. After the 2020 race was forced to go virtual, the 2021 race on October 10 proved to be one of the most challenging in the event’s history as COVID regulations forced event organizers to operate differently than they had in the past. In doing so, the Chicago Marathon became the first of the six Abbott World Marathon Majors to be run in person since the pandemic began. In this episode, learn what it took to produce the race, how organizers handled COVID protocols, how organizers communicated with participants and what major takeaways Nishi has for event organizers and host cities staging their own events in a post-COVID world.

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Danny Martin has known esports for years even before the industry was calling itself esports. In college, he was the one who would fix video game consoles for his classmates when things broke down. That led to him organizing what were essentially esports tournaments from his dorm room or apartment, allowing him to assess all ends of what would be soon become an industry in itself. Martin sees the long-term play now for the esports industry in developing not only elite athletes that can play in the professional leagues, but all the behind-the-scenes professionals that make live events possible: broadcasters, videographers, graphic designers, coders, event organizers and more. Through his company, Esposure, he has built a technology platform and lab where each of these aspects of the industry can live under one roof.

Esposure is a company based near Dallas that offers a curriculum designed for high school students wanting to dive into all these different specialities. And now they can do it in an actual venue, where events can be staged for competition and students can get hands-on experience learning the tricks of the trade. It’s a concept that can extend to other communities and it has Martin in touch with mayors, school boards and other civic leaders interested in learning more about the concept as a way to develop a whole new talent pipeline. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we talk with Martin about his roots in esports, the development of his company and why destinations should be thinking about the youngest generations now as they are poised to become the future of the industry.

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