Improving communities through sport

How Youth Sports Complexes Support Local Communities

Guest post written by Cameron Connelly, Content Marketing Intern, The Sports Facilities Companies. 

When the dust settles around the site of a new youth sports complex in a community, there is a lot more to look forward to than just sports. The health and wellness benefits that sports can provide kids, now and in the future, are great. But what sort of benefits can a youth sports complex provide to the parents in a community or even the people in a community that don’t have any kids?

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Hoover Met Case Study

Property Value

It is unlikely that you have no interest in youth sports complexes or youth sports tourism if you are reading this article, but let’s just pretend for a moment that you aren’t interested in either of those things. You just happen to own a home in a neighborhood that is in the process of building a new youth sports complex to be used for youth sports tourism. Regardless of whether you think you will use the complex or not, studies have shown that just being close by to a walking trail, park, or rec center can increase the property value of your home by an average of 3 to 5 percent. So, if you find that you don’t ever use the facility and you don’t like living near a state-of-the-art youth sports venue then you can leave with 3 to 5 percent more money in your pockets. Don’t head out too soon though because there are more benefits to come that can further increase the value of your home and improve the quality of life in your community.

New Business & New Businesses

With the influx of athletes coming to your town to participate in camps and tournaments comes an increase in businesses to serve them. Even if your business isn’t one that will be directly affected by guest spending, it is likely that you will still see an increase in revenue through the indirect and induced economic impact. In the years after the Hoover Met Complex opened in Hoover, AL, there has been a surge in development around the complex. It is only a 15-minute drive from Birmingham, yet several new hotels and apartment buildings started to pop up around the venue because of attendance at its events.

That increase in people and spending will also provide the right environment for new businesses to develop in to serve the growing audience. New stores and restaurants provide more employment opportunities for local residents as well as new places to eat and shop for everyone visiting or living in the community.

City Infrastructure

All that spending coming in, whether it is direct, indirect, or induced generates tax dollars. What your city does with those tax dollars is up to them, but you can be sure that any potholes that develop in your city are dealt with much faster than they might have been before the sports complex was there. The complex isn’t there to be visited once, it is there to be used again and again by the community, surrounding areas, and anyone willing to travel for their sport. So, to encourage more visits to the venue, the city may work to make sure that everything that they are in charge of managing is handled correctly. This includes roads, bridges, law enforcement, and emergency services.

If you are interested in bringing all these benefits and more to your town then consider building a youth sports facility. We here at The Sports Facilities Companies can help you at any stage of the process from researching the feasibility to managing the completed project. Just let us know how we can help you by contacting us or giving us a call at (727) 474-3845.

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Elizabethtown Case Study

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