Winners of 2024 SportsTravel Awards Announced at TEAMS ’24

The Northstar Meetings Group announced the winners of the 2024 SportsTravel Awards during the TEAMS ’24 Conference & Expo in Anaheim, California, honoring the best events, venue and host city in the sports-event industry.

TEAMS: Travel, Events And Management in Sports, is the world’s largest gathering of event organizers and travel planners from the sports industry. TEAMS ’24 was held at the Anaheim Convention Center. The National Congress of State Games also announced the winners of its Athlete of the Year awards during the awards ceremony and Compete Sports Diversity recognized its Person of the Year.

The 2024 SportsTravel Award winners were:

• 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials — Swimming in Indianapolis, Indiana, for Best Amateur Event. The trials were staged at Lucas Oil Stadium, the first swimming event staged in an NFL stadium. Over 17 sessions, the stadium saw an average of 16,000 fans per session, maxing at 22,209 on June 19 for the largest swim meet ever held. Upwards of 250,000 attended fan events.
• 2023 Volleyball Day in Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, for Best Collegiate Event. The event — held outdoors at Memorial Stadium, the football home for the University of Nebraska — set a world record for a women’s sports event with 92,003 people watching Nebraska women’s volleyball team defeat Omaha. The event also featured a Division II match between Wayne State and Nebraska-Kearney.
• 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, Michigan, for Best Professional Event. The NFL Draft held in downtown Detroit drew an estimated record 775,000 people and generated an estimated $213 million economic impact, including $161 million from visitors coming to Michigan. Hotel occupancy hit a high of 92 percent on the Friday night of the draft with 30 percent traveling more than 100 miles to attend.
• 2023 All-Ripken Games in Elizabethtown, Kentucky; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; and Aberdeen, Maryland, for Best New Event. The inaugural All-Ripken Games series attracted the top youth players from across the country at five events in four locations. The series had an estimated total direct impact of $2.7 million from nearly 1,500 athletes, with 96 percent staying overnight, generating more than 4,000 room nights.
• CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, for Best New or Renovated Venue. The 11,500-seat new home of the KC Current in the National Women’s Soccer League is the first stadium in the world constructed specifically for professional women’s sports. The privately funded $135 million stadium sits on a seven-acre site in Berkley Riverfront Park and will soon feature surrounding retail development.
• Indianapolis, Indiana, as Best Host City. Since July of 2023, Indianapolis has hosted events that total an estimated $500 million in economic impact, including the 2023 Big Ten Football Championship, the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, the 2024 NFL Combine, 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds, and the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming.

“We’ve seen incredible developments in women’s sports in particular, which is indicative in our readers recognizing the largest sports event for women ever held and the first stadium built specifically for a women’s professional team,” said Jason Gewirtz, vice president of the Sports Division of Northstar Meetings Group, which publishes SportsTravel and organizes the TEAMS Conference & Expo. “But all of our winners broke new ground in sporting events whether at the professional, collegiate or amateur level. The sports-event industry is strong and our roster of winners reflects that extraordinary growth.”

The SportsTravel Awards are nominated and voted on by the readers of SportsTravel. Criteria for nomination and voting for the 2024 SportsTravel Awards program included events that occurred or venues that opened between August 1, 2023, and July 31, 2024.

Hosted by the Visit Anaheim, TEAMS ’24 was held September 23­­–26 in Anaheim, California. For more information, visit TEAMSconference.com.