Erie Sports Commission Awarded $45,000 Sports Marketing and Tourism Grant

The Erie Sports Commission has been awarded a $45,000 Sports Marketing and Tourism program grant by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to help offset the costs of hosting Major League Fishing this past August.

“It is a tremendous honor to be one of the 10 counties to be awarded a SMAT program grant,” said Mark Jeanneret, executive director for the Erie Sports Commission. “State funding like this is integral to our ability to attract major events and we hope this exposure of our fishery to a national audience will result in additional tournaments as well as attract countless leisure anglers that will want to experience the same fishing scene featured during the tournament.”

The program was established to help attract amateur and professional sporting events to Pennsylvania, with the goal of capitalizing on the tourism that comes with hosting a national event. Twenty-four professional anglers traveled to Erie in August to participate in Major League Fishing’s General Tire Team Series B&W Trailer Hitches Challenge Cup. The event will air on the Outdoor Channel as six two-hour episodes every Saturday afternoon starting in January.

“Despite being on Lake Erie, regularly rated as one of the top bass fisheries in the world, our community has never hosted a national fishing competition,” stated PA State Senator Dan Laughlin in his letter of support for the Sports Commission’s SMAT application. “By securing one of only three qualifiers that will be held for MLF’s General Tire Team Series in the U.S. in 2024, the Erie Sports Commission has positioned our community to showcase itself on a level in the national fishing community that we have never experienced before.”