CT Meetings Potentially Saved in Appropriations Budget

Bob Murdock worked the room as always during the Sports ETA Annual Symposium in Tulsa, Oklahoma, making each of his appointments and meeting with potential clients that would want to do business and bring their events to Connecticut.

All the while, Murdock was under a cloud of uncertainty after the state budget had not included $500,000 marked for the Connecticut Convention and Sports Bureau. The news of the budget a few weeks ago led CT Meetings to work on an instate awareness campaign both within municipalities and state lawmakers … and, potentially, success is in hand.

The Appropriations Committee of the Connecticut legislature issued their budget on Tuesday and included $500,000 per year for two years in this budget, a positive step in the bureau’s existence although there are still final approvals to be made.

“We are telling our story,” Murdock said. “I think it will help us in the long run that more people know what we do and we will definitely change what we do going forward.”

In June 2012, the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau was established by the state government. CT Meetings, as the bureau is now known, is the state’s only meetings and sports event sales and marketing organization. During its push to lawmakers, it pointed out that for every $1 invested in the bureau, $10.63 was returned in the form of sales tax.

“We made it really localized for the legislators so if they represent New London, (we show them) these are the events that we help bring to New London,” Murdock said. “They see the impact on their community directly … our group is not just sports. I was talking to a legislator last week and he was he’d worked for the Navy, so I talked about events that we had that were police oriented or Navy oriented.”

CTCSB has been operating in its present form since 2012 and last year hosted the USA Gymnastics Core Hydration Classic at the XL Center in Hartford, which was the final chance for competitors to qualify for the national championships and put themselves in the spotlight ahead of the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris.

CT Meetings has been responsible for a series of sporting events ranging from four AAU New England Volleyball events in 2024 to the 2025 NIKE New England Winterfest Volleyball Tournament and 2025 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the world’s largest crossword puzzle tournament. It has already secured the 2027 NCAA Men’s Hockey Regionals in Bridgeport and 2028 Women’s Frozen Four in Fairfield.

“I’ve taken the approach that we are going to be here because otherwise I shouldn’t even come,’ Murdock said during the symposium.

It looks like that approach may turn to be the correct one.