SportsTravel Podcast

The first weekend in February will be an extraordinary one in Orlando, Florida, which hosts the U.S. Olympic Trials for marathon on February 3, followed the next day by the NFL Pro Bowl Games are at Camping World Stadium. The big weekend comes on the heels of news that two of the city’s recognizable sports venues will receive more than a combined $600 million in renovations in the coming years. We chatted with Jason Siegel, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission, about the process in landing the U.S. Olympic Trials for Marathon and the preparation that has gone into planning the event, what the big weekend ahead will be like for locals, the news of renovation funds committed to area venues and more.

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The Greater Columbus Sports Commission will host this year’s U.S. Figure Skating National Championships, the first time the event will be in the Ohio destination. Nationwide Arena will host over 400 athletes, coaches, and officials, plus thousands of fans over the seven-day event. The venue is within walking distance of many hotels and restaurants to ensure a smooth fan experience. It’s a major event to kick off a busy year ahead for the Greater Columbus Sports Commission and Linda Logan, which will host more than a half-dozen other collegiate and national governing body events in the first six months of the year. We talked with Linda Logan, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, and Jesse Ghiorzi, director of marketing at the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, about planning for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, what it took to win the bid and much more.

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Sam Joffray is no stranger to the Super Bowl. He has been to every big game since 1997 in some capacity. Whether it was leading a bid for the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation or as a consultant or vendor, Joffray has a wealth of experience when it comes to the NFL’s crown jewel. So when Las Vegas welcomed the Raiders to the city and built world-class Allegiant Stadium four years ago, they needed someone to run point on a Super Bowl bid. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority hired Joffray to be the president and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee. Following a successful bid, Sin City will host its first Super Bowl on February 11. Joffray and his team have been hard at work to make sure the event is a success, and are hopeful that Las Vegas can get into the regular rotation of Super Bowl host venues is the coming years.

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Last year the editors of SportsTravel got together for a year end recap for the first time and we thought it would be a great idea to do that again. In this episode, Managing Editor Matt Traub, Associate Editor Justin Shaw and Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz take a look at their biggest takeaways from the past year, stories that resonated with them, stories that flew under the radar, the biggest international news and their favorite events to cover. But they'll also take a look at stories they will be following in the year to come and will each make a bold prediction for 2024. And pay attention to those predictions as last year, two of their three ended up coming true with Matt predicting chaos in conference realignment and Justin impressively calling that the Denver Nuggets would win the NBA championship with Nikola Jokic being named MVP. Jason's prediction of the University of Colorado winning the College Football Playoff National Championship failed to come to fruition — although for three weeks this fall when Colorado football was the talk of the nation, it seemed like even that one would come to pass. So sit back and take a listen to our year in review and our look ahead to 2024.

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J.C. Poma spent almost 7 years with Richmond Region Tourism, working his way up from manager to director to vice president before leaving earlier this year. He didn’t venture far, as he went about 20 miles south of Richmond to the small city of Chesterfield, Virginia. Since arriving in Chesterfield, his task has been to build up the Play Chesterfield brand within the Sports, Visitation, & Entertainment department, and both utilize and upgrade the various facilities in the area. Poma’s philosophy of building from within has Play Chesterfield focused on creating spaces for residents to play and interact, while also looking to bring in tournaments and events from outside the county to drive revenue. We talked with Poma about what his short and longterm goals are, how he and his team are promoting the new Play Chesterfield venture and the delicate balance of keeping the locals happy, while establishing the destination as a prime spot for sports tourism.

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Flag football being named to the 2028 Olympic program earlier this year completed an impressive rise for the sport. Having the sport in the Los Angeles Games is a massive win for the NFL in broadening its global reach. On the IOC’s part, having the NFL promoting the Olympics does the same in expanding its reach and marketing to fans of a sport who may have never bothered with the Games in the past. And having gender equality in flag football is a big reason why the IOC was open to the idea of the sport being on the program; more than half a dozen states have sanctioned girls’ flag football as a varsity sport. We talked with USA Football Chief Executive Officer and President Scott Hallenbeck about the sport’s inclusion into the Olympics, its rise among girls and female participants, and much more about the sport’s global reach.

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Khalid Cannon didn’t have the most direct route to the world of Ivy League athletics, but he certainly made the most of his opportunity. Growing up on a chicken farm in Alabama, his father was incarcerated when he was just a toddler, a development that led him to sports as a youth as an outlet for the challenges his family naturally faced. Not only did he excel athletically in baseball, football and other sports, he excelled academically as well. So much so that when it came time to consider playing football in college, he caught the eye of coaches at Yale and eventually played offensive line for the Bulldogs while pursuing degrees in chemistry and geology. After graduation, his career included a stint at a gold mining corporation until a conversation with a fellow former Yale football player turned him on to a fledgling nonprofit called Put Me In!

The mission of Put Me In! is to be a support to the more than 5 million kids who are estimated to have a parent who is incarcerated. CIPS, or children of incarcerated parents, are a group that doesn’t get much attention in the world of sports-related travel. But Put Me In! exists to give those kids scholarships to cover the costs of sports equipment, league fees and travel to tournaments. The organization has started small but is rapidly expanding, bringing on Cannon recently as its first full-time employee in the role of president and chief program officer. As you’ll hear in this conversation with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, they’ve found perhaps the perfect person for the role. As the issue of equity in youth sports continues to rise to importance, Put Me In! is a terrific example of how some groups are looking to level the playing field.

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Like many elements of the incredibly fast-growing sport of pickleball, the PPA Tour does not yet have a long history, having been founded in 2018. But its growth has also been very much on the upswing. Today the tour offers 24 events nationwide and a prize purse exceeding $5 million. Carvana is on as a title sponsor and interest on all levels in the tour continues to rise. Recent months have also seen the signing of a slate of professional players, many of who are former tennis stars like Sam Querry, Jack Sock and Genie Bouchard to name a few. The recently announced merger with Major League Pickleball, an entity that has taken more of a team approach, also promises to grow the pie. And the PPA Tour recently became the first league to allow gambling on matches, opening the sport to a new audience of potential bettors on the action.

In this conversation, we chat with tour’s president, Bryce Morgan, about where the tour has been, where it’s headed and trends the PPA is watching by way of venue development, site selection, participation rates and more.

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The Maryland Cycling Classic, a one-day competition sanctioned by USA cycling and UCI, the sport’s international federation, is the centerpiece of a full Labor Day weekend of activities throughout the Baltimore region. The event is owned and operated by the Sport and Entertainment Corporation of Maryland, of which Terry Hasseltine is the president. We chatted with Terry recently about getting the event off the ground last year after two previously scheduled attempts were cancelled because of the pandemic, what goes into the planning and logistics of the event, if anything has changed from the inaugural year to this year and what the event could grow to be in future years. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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The EsportsTravel Summit is the world’s largest gathering of esports tournament and video-game event organizers and the only event focused on the travel side of the esports industry. Presented by SportsTravel and hosted by Destination Toronto, the 2023 EsportsTravel Summit was held July 12–14, 2023, in Toronto.

One of the major programming sessions at the event was on grassroots esports. Recognizing the important work being done at the grassroots may be even more crucial to a destination’s success in building an esports ecosystem of its own. In this session, attendees were able to hear the experiences and advice from a panel of experts that included Katie Briggs, president at LanFest; Melissa Burns, founder and chair of Esports Canada and Gerald Solomon, executive director of the NASEF.

2:15: What is the big-picture state of grassroots esports?

5:45: The differences between grassroots esports and the other disciplines of the industry

9:25: The value that grassroots esports brings to destinations around North America

14:50: Esports parents and the role they have with encouraging grassroots esports involvement

21:32: Sustainability in grassroots esports and having educational facilities encourage its involvement

27:37: The authenticity of grassroots esports and keeping that feel to encourage attendance and family involvement

32:57: How grassroots esports can serve as a model for the rest of the industry on various levels

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