Joan Kranovich, vice president of business growth and director of Sports QC for Visit Quad Cities, talks about sports tourism in the region during a Bettendorf Business Network meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 7. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
Big sporting events are coming to the Quad Cities this year. Those events will bring thousands of people and millions of dollars to the region. That’s the word from Joan Kranovich, vice president of business growth and director of Sports QC for Visit Quad Cities. Ms. Kranovich gave an update on sports tourism in the […]
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Big sporting events are coming to the Quad Cities this year. Those events will bring thousands of people and millions of dollars to the region.That’s the word from Joan Kranovich, vice president of business growth and director of Sports QC for Visit Quad Cities. Ms. Kranovich gave an update on sports tourism in the Quad Cities during a Bettendorf Business Network (BBN) lunch meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn on Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 7.Sports tourism has at least a $60 million annual economic impact on the region, according to Sports QC.“We’re always looking for ways to differentiate ourselves from the competition when going after sporting events. … Sometimes, we are the underdog when we go after something big,” she said during the BBN meeting that had about 35 people from the business community in attendance.Those “underdog” efforts that help the QC get sports events include working with businesses and venues in the community to get big events, forming partnerships in the community and working hard to showcase the many features of the Quad Cities, according to the Sports QC “Game Plan.” (Go here to see that plan.)
New events scheduled
During Tuesday’s meeting, Ms. Kranovich told the business crowd about some of the upcoming sporting events scheduled to take place in the Quad Cities. Those events include:
American Cue Sports Midwest 8-Ball Championships.
United Hoops Quad Cities Classic.
Iowa Soccer Copa Clasico Indoor Soccer tournaments.
Augustana College’s D3 QC National Women’s Wrestling Invitational.
In addition to those events, the Quad City Tennis Club will host a professional pickleball tournament Aug. 8-10 that is expected to give a $1.2 million boost to the local economy.On the national front, sports tourism has about a $52 billion direct spending impact; a $128 billion total economic impact and creates 757,600 jobs across the country, according to information Ms. Kranovich presented at the Tuesday meeting.She added that getting sporting events to the community – and getting a portion of that tourism money – doesn’t happen by chance. It takes a community team effort to keep the Quad Cities in the game.
