baseball spring training

If you've been following the news lately, or reading this blog, you know that there have been some big changes announced in baseball Spring Training in Tucson, Arizona. Unfortunately for all the nice folks who live down in Tucson, almost none of the baseball Spring Training news has been good. It's been reported that both the Colorado Rockies and Arizona's own Diamondbacks will be bolting the Old Pueblo's baseball Spring Training facilities when their leases expire in 2011 and 2013 respectively. However, if the right people act promptly, by sometime next year, it is still possible to retain some baseball Spring Training business in Tucson, rather than losing it to Glendale, Tempe, or other locations outside of Arizona. But what that will take is for the Pima County Sports and Tourism authority to muster the will to update the baseball Spring Training facilities in Tucson, including the aging Hy Corbett Field, and to build another, larger facility with multiple baseball diamonds, grandstands and clubhouses for the team.
        This is no small issue for the city of Tucson. A company called FMR Associates analyzed the economic impact that baseball Spring Training has on the Tucson economy and found that it pumps and additional $31 million into the local economy every year. Over 238,000 people attend baseball Spring Training games in Tucson in 2007, and that number was up 14% in 2008, for a total of 270,000 attendees. So, losing baseball Spring Training isn't just a baseball issue for the people of Tucson, it's a major component of the local economy because of all of the tourists who visit Tucson during baseball Spring Training season just to watch the games. A survey was conducted of people attending the baseball Spring Training games and it was learned that 56% of them came to Tucson specifically to watch the games. And 60% of those surveyed said that they would also take some other tourist attraction while they were in Tucson. What that means is that if Tucson loses the baseball Spring Training business of the Rockies and the Diamondbacks, it won't just impact the hotel and restaurant sectors, it will also have an impact on attractions like the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the Pima County Air and Space Museum, the Desert Botanical Gardens and so on. The Chicago White Sox are already leaving, so if Tucson wants to keep the Rockies and the Diamondbacks in town for baseball Spring Training, they're going to have to act fast and decisively to keep these teams. If the city can raise the funds to upgrade existing baseball Spring Training facilities, it may also be possible to expand the number of teams who come there for Spring Training, which would be a boon to Tucson's perpetually depressed economy.