PANAMA CITY BEACH — Event organizers responsible for an estimated $50 million in annual economic impact for Bay County gathered Wednesday to share ideas about how to grow that number.
For the seventh year, the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) hosted its Sports and Events Workshop at the Frank Brown Park gym, bringing together about 30 event-rights holders from across the country, responsible for hosting hundreds of sporting and special events in Panama City Beach every year.
“There’s $50 million worth of economic impact under this roof today,” said Richard Sanders, vice president of sports and special events for the CVB. “Sports is in a good place. Ever since we started the program ... we have continued to increase participation 10 to 15 percent.”
As the number of sports tournaments and special events in Panama City Beach continues to grow — about 150 are lined up this year — the CVB, which takes direction from the Bay County Tourist Development Council, is now focused on developing additional venues to host those events.
“Our long-term vision is more rectangular fields, more baseball and softball fields, and even as far as a 100,000-square-foot-plus indoor special events center,” Sanders said.
The agency recently solicited bids for the design of a new Panama City Beach “sports village,” a three-phase project that also was submitted to the Bay County RESTORE Act Advisory Committee in the hopes of garnering a portion of the $6.3 million available for environmental and economic restoration projects. The projects represent three of 22 still in the running to receive funding from the county, a decision that will be made later this year.
“The ball is rolling on this stuff now,” Sanders said of the project, which prioritizes the development of eight rectangular athletic fields to host sporting events like soccer and lacrosse. “We’re in the process of making some of this become reality.”
Sanders said the additional fields could help bolster visitation during the spring, fall and winter, when many of those sports are in season.
“Over 50 percent of our economic impact is during the prime time of the year,” he said. “I really feel like what we do with fast-pitch softball and baseball we could do with soccer.”
The destination’s biggest tournament sport, girl’s fast-pitch softball, brings in more than 500 teams per year, accounting for about 30,000 room nights.
John Cain, owner and founder of the United States Fastpitch Association (USFA), said those numbers could be bigger with additional fields in the area. Additional fields also would help keep more teams on the beach. Currently, Cain said USFA holds tournament games at a few over-the-bridge locations to fill the void.
“We could bring in twice as many teams in if we had more fields,” Cain said. “With another four fields, we could do 40,000” room nights.
Despite the limitations, Cain said USFA plans to keep coming back to Panama City Beach.
“It’s the location,” Cain said. “Just like buying real estate, the first three things are location, location, location.”
