Category: Main Feature

Main Feature — SportsTravel — News, Insight and Analysis for the Sports-Event Industry

Duke-Gonzaga T-Mobile
Las Vegas has hosted many premier early-season college basketball events, and will now add the Players Era Festival to the list. In 2021, the city hosted a top 5 matchup between Duke and Gonzaga. Photo by Al Powers for T-Mobile Arena, courtesy of MGM Resorts International

MGM Resorts Welcomes NIL Basketball Tournament to Las Vegas

MGM Resorts International’s three arenas in Las Vegas — T-Mobile Arena, Michelob Ultra Arena and MGM Grand Garden Arena — have hosted everything from basketball, boxing and hockey to bull riding and professional wrestling. But even for an entity as big as MGM, there is opportunity to break new ground in the sports world. And […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
McKenzie Arena
McKenzie Arena, home for the men's and women's basketball teams at Chattanooga, is a 12,000 seat multipurpose facility that opened in 1982. Photo by Matt Traub/SportsTravel
Category:

Chattanooga Shows Off for Sports ETA 4S Summit

Descending into the Smoky Mountains and looking out the window, the expanse of green forestry revealed the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has built its sports-tourism offerings through a mix of sports, on a variety of levels, and showcased its growing downtown walkability and outdoor activities to the industry last week. Sports ETA hosted its […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
Superdome
The Superdome will host the Super Bowl on February 9, 2025, as the massive structure celebrates its 50th anniversary. Photo by Justin Shaw/SportsTravel
Category:

New Orleans Ready to Show It’s “Built to Host”

There’s a three-word phrase all over New Orleans. It adorns everything from notepads to drink koozies to signage around the city: Built to Host. It’s a catchy slogan for the popular tourist destination, but those three words have a different meaning in the coming months for the Crescent City less than three months away from […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
2017-NCAA-Womens-Final-Four
The 2017 NCAA Women's Final Four was a landmark for the Dallas Sports Commission, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall. Photo via Dallas Sports Commission
Category:

Dallas Sports Commission Celebrates a Decade Well Played

Dallas has been one of the hotbeds for sports in the United States for decades thanks in part to its professional sports franchises, but previous attempts at forming a dedicated sports bureau to promote the city had come and gone. But when Visit Dallas established the Dallas Sports Commission in 2014, it did so with […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
Paris Olympics
Former U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn takes a selfie with the Salt Lake City delegation after the IOC formally awarded the 2034 Winter Games to the United States bid in Paris. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

How Salt Lake City Landed the Olympic and Paralympic Games

There was no need to talk about a potential host or a candidate city. IOC President Thomas Bach made the proclamation in Paris: Salt Lake City will host the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. City and state leaders, plus those who had shepherded the winning bid, spilled out into a mixed zone on July […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
NFL Brazil
The NFL made its inaugural trip to Brazil when the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers clashed at Neo Quimica Arena in Sao Paulo on September 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Category:

Inside the NFL’s International Expansion Plans

It was during last season that the National Football League played its 50th regular-season game outside of the United States, 18 years after its first. It will certainly not take that long to get the next 50 under its belt. The league’s opening weekend featured a game in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as the Philadelphia Eagles […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
TEAMS Banner
The TEAMS Conference was at the Anaheim Convention Center in California for 2024. (Photo by Jared Wickerham)

TEAMS Conference & Expo Announces Hosts for 2030, 2031

Northstar Meetings Group has announced two future sites for the TEAMS Conference & Expo, the world’s largest gathering of sports-event organizers, taking the annual event to a pair of markets that reflect the vitality of the sports-related travel market. Along with previously announced host cities, the conference has now announced its host locations through 2031. […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
Fort Wayne DIII Basketball Championship Aerial
The NCAA Division III National Championship game has found a home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in recent years. Photo courtesy of Visit Fort Wayne

Why Hosting NCAA Championships Are Game Changing For Destinations

As the NCAA enters the final month of its deliberation on which cities will be the hosts for its next championship bid cycle for hundreds of events across all three divisions, destinations around the country anxiously await news of the status of their bids. It’s quite a mix of cities that are bidding to host […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
Visit Greenville SEC basketball
Greenville, South Carolina, has become a home to the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament, having hosted the event six times in the past eight years. It will again be the site in 2025. Photo courtesy of Visit Greenville
Category:

Sports Commissions Punching Above Their Weight

The sports tourism industry continues to rise to new levels with each passing year, as it has not only recovered from COVID, but surpassed the pre-COVID years in many aspects. However, the upswing in sports business being brought into destinations has not correlated directly to local CVBs and sports commissions expanding their dedicated sports staff. […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :
Michigan Penn St Football
Fireworks go off over Beaver Stadium as Penn State hosts Michigan in State College, Pennsylvania, in October 2019. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

2024’s Best Places to Watch a College Football Game

College football season looks different than ever before after two years of realignment frenzy. With the Pac-12 Conference all but disbanded and mega-conferences stretching from coast to coast, SportsTravel is taking a different approach this fall. With a massive season about to get underway, we’ve picked out a series of destinations that would be great […]

Continue Reading
Posted On :