GREENSBORO, NC -- With the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in town, reporters armed with lots of glee and few facts were touting the local economic impact, reporting it as expected (by whom they did not say) to be anywhere from $20 million to $30 million -- none ever attributing the information to any original source, report or data. WFMY's news director even went so far as, when asked about it, to insist that he was "not in the habit of sharing our sources."
Today we had another estimate: $26 million, as brought to my attention by Keith Brown. This one, from News 14 Carolina, had a little meat to it. Although it is annoying that the newsorg did not verify it, it quoted Henri Fourrier of the Greensboro Convention and Visitor's bureau as saying that number came from a report published by the City of Spokane, Washington, last year's host of the event.
Rumors of such a report had been circulating, but without the correct "$26 million" my internet searches came up empty. Different story today. I'll spare you the details, suffice it to say that with an internet search, an email to a very nice person at the City of Spokane and the fifteen minutes it took me to write this post and upload the documents, I can report to you, dear reader (and I mean that in the strictest numerical sense) that yes, an official in Spokane's Finance Division did publish a report that estimated a $26 million dollar impact to the city from last year's U.S. Figure Skating Championship. I'll leave it to you to decide how convincing you find it -- it is an estimate -- and to what extent Greensboro can extrapolate expectations from it, but the bottom line is this, we now have a documented source for the claims from which we can draw our own conclusions. Here it is:
Spokane: CITY EXPECTS ECONOMIC BOOST FROM 2010 U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Spokane: Complete Breakdown of the Estimated Economic Impact 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships
it is still a estimation game and the press will put it out as fact all day long and thanks for all the post on this , but your back and forth with news 2 is classic.
ReplyDeleteIt should be relatively easy to calculate the revenue. On average each skater has a coach. So 2 people for every skater, inclusive. As for family and friends, NBC's coverage has attempted to show the few family members that have made the trip.
ReplyDeleteWe know that one skater and his family are at Daryl's after his win. John Robinson reports that he did not eat at the coliseum.
The actual real competition (Thursday nite forward) drew respectable crowds of 6,000. But because the events were short; it is difficult to claim each event drew 6,000 unique attendees. There were also a lot of comp tickets floating around town.
With skaters, coaches, families, NBC crew, Skating officials and Guest - I'd say 1,000 average across the week. (Keep in mind that some folks came early and left after their competition; just as others came late.)
It is no doubt that Greensboro looks good on TV; but the TV feed takes the audio from the mixer. Fans in the seats har something resembling the teachers on "Peanuts".
The press and NBC crew had a comp refreshments, so they did not have to deal with Coliseum pricing. Nor did they have to hike through parking lot.
My former boss had seen the coliseum for years through the eyes of television. When he saw it in person, he exclaimed "What a dump!"
Mr Moore - you are incorrect: Elite skaters have 2 coaches very often, and they will also travel occassionally with a choreographer or a personal trainer.
ReplyDeleteThe USFSA was elated and over the top with the results of this competition. They had many many glowing things to say about Greensboro, The Colisuem especially, and the local volunteers, of whom there were hundreds. The attendance was considered excellent (so the naysayers were incorrect here)
ReplyDeleteIncredibly, the juniors, usually poorly attended, broke an attendance record in one discipline & and came very close in others. That was a surprise to all, including USFSA.
The ladies freeskate was a sell out, which is positive for Greensboro. The event will most likely return - that is how good an impression Greensboro made on USFSA - and they have their pick of places to host such an event. The vendors also did well, Greensboro was lucrative for several of them. So the coliseum as a venue had a great showing, especially since Competition ice, practice ice & fanfest were all under one roof.
Perhaps it will lead to other marquee events in the future.
By the way I speak of impressions of our city & how we did - not economic impact.