By Logan B. Anderson

WILMINGTON — Sports tourism has been an MVP in economic terms in the state of Delaware and across the country, but potential COVID-19-related drops in youth participation may throw a flag on the play for future economic development.

In the past five years, sports tourism has generated $45.1 billion in the United States, Dr. Jennifer Stoll, of Stoll Sports Strategies, reported Thursday during the Delaware Tourism Office’s tourism educational summit at the Chase Center in Wilmington.

“The growth that we see over the last five years was pretty spectacular,” Dr. Stoll said.

Industry watchers are excited about those figures because they only include youth sport activities and outdoor leisure sport spending.

“When we did this research, we took out regular-season college sports and we took out (professional) sports,” Dr. Stoll said.

A main economic indicator of the impact of sports tourism is hotel stays or “heads in beds,” Dr. Stoll said on Thursday.

“What is economic impact? It’s floating up there. Somebody spouted a big number. It sounds great, but how does that transfer to money back in our community that we can reinvest in things? That comes from the tax side of it, whether it’s a lodging tax, the sales tax, or any other fee otherwise associated,” Dr. Stoll said.

In 2019, sports tourism generated $14.6 billion in state and local taxes across the country, according to Stoll Sports Strategies’ research.

“That’s a pretty big deal. Those are dollars coming back,” Dr. Stoll said.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, sports tourism has been a shot in the arm for economic development.

“When meetings, conventions, and closed environments were not taking place, what was? Sports. outdoors, open spaces, leisure travel participants, hiking, golfing, fishing, all of those things have been on the rise,” Dr. Stoll said.

Delaware has made significant investments in sports tourism in recent years. Each Delaware county has a large facility designed to attract sporting events.

New Castle County has the Chase 76ers Fieldhouse in Wilmington. Kent County has the DE Turf Sports Complex in Frederica. Sussex County has Sports at the Beach and Sandhill Fields in Georgetown.

Delaware Gov. John Carney called the state’s investments in sports tourism, “really exciting,” on Thursday.

“The regional competitions and tournaments are really one of the bright spots in Delaware for tourism,” Gov. Carney said.

Though sports tourism is paying off now, some recent research suggests that a drop in youth sports participation could slow down that impact in years to come.

The Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit that conducts research on issues facing the U.S. and the globe, with its imitative Project Play, conducted research relating to youth sports participation during the pandemic.

“They saw almost 30% of youth aged 12 and over having a decreased interest in participation. It’s a major problem going forward,” Dr. Stoll said.

She added researchers will reevaluate the recent participation trends as pandemic recovery continues but warns that a drop in involvement may translate to a loss of revenue and may have greater consequences.

“It’s a big problem. Not only for our industry, but the health of our country and mental wellbeing. I would argue that we as sports tourism professionals have a greater obligation, not just to putting kids and their families in hotel rooms,” said Dr. Stoll. “We have an obligation to provide opportunities for participation at any age level and not just high competition. There are other ways to distribute sport.”

The Aspen Institute plans to conduct more research on youth sport participation projections in 2022.