The Maine Sports Commission has a two-word answer to the question of how to strengthen and stabilize the state’s economy: “Game on.”

Since its creation in early 2012, the publicly funded, nonprofit commission has been working to help bring more major sporting events to Maine, and it has scored some notable successes.

Most recently, it lured the Professional Bowlers Association to the state for the “PBA Maine Event,” the league quarterfinals, held at Bayside Bowl in Portland in late March. The PBA has said it will return to Bayside Bowl in April 2016.

The commission also worked with Westbrook officials to bring Tough Mudder’s “Great Northeast” extreme obstacle course event to the city’s Sunset Ridge Golf Links course in August. That event drew a crowd of roughly 13,000 athletes and spectators and generated an estimated $3 million to $5 million in revenue for area businesses such as hotels, restaurants and retailers, a city official said.

Tough Mudder already has committed to a hosting a second event in Westbrook in September.

According to the National Association of Sports Commissions, Maine’s commission has generated about $4.6 million in economic impact during the past year through sporting events it single-handedly brought to Maine, and another $8.1 million through collaborative efforts such as the one with Westbrook.

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Robert Coppola, the commission’s new strategic director, said he is working on bids for a variety of future events that could bring nearly $13 million in revenue to Maine in 2016.

The commission will host a symposium at 1 p.m. Thursday at the University of Southern Maine in Portland to extol the economic virtues of attracting more sporting events to the state. The goal is to get potential partners such as municipal leaders and venue owners thinking about sports as a way to bring added revenue to their communities.

“Everyone sees the opportunity that could be had,” Coppola said.

A FAST-GROWING NICHE

The commission’s aim is to promote Maine as a year-round destination for sporting events and boost the economic impact of sports in the state by attracting new events and growing the popularity of existing ones.

The commission is going after a fast-growing niche of the tourism industry known as sports tourism, which currently generates an estimated $600 billion in revenue worldwide.

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Drivers of sports tourism do not include, say, regular season Portland Pirates games, said Joanne Williams, a commission executive committee member and associate professor of sports marketing at USM. Such events are attended primarily by Mainers and thus don’t bring in much money from away.

Williams and the other commission members are seeking one-time or regularly recurring events that draw participants and spectators from across the region, country or globe.

The idea is to bring in out-of-state dollars that otherwise would not be spent in Maine, she said.

Examples include the TD Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race in Cape Elizabeth, the Nature Valley U.S. Alpine Championships in Sugarloaf, and the 2014 Biathlon World Junior Championships in Presque Isle.

While the sports commission was not responsible for bringing those events to the state, it has attracted several others and is actively seeking opportunities to capitalize on Maine’s unusual topography, status as a tourist destination and abundant natural resources.

In addition to the PBA events, the commission is responsible for bringing to Maine the 2014 NCAA Division III Men’s Ice Hockey Championship in Lewiston, the USA Ultimate (Frisbee) 2015 Northeastern Regional Championships in South Portland and other events across the state.

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Given its modest annual budget of $140,000 in state and local funding, those are significant achievements, commission members said.

“On the tourism side, in a relatively short time I think we’ve done a very good job,” Williams said.

MORE THAN MONEY

While Tough Mudder has estimated that its 2014 obstacle course event in Westbrook generated up to $5 million in area economic activity, it is actually impossible to quantify the full economic benefit of such an event, said William Baker, Westbrook’s assistant city administrator for business and community relations.

Nearly half of the event’s attendees had never been to southern Maine, he said, which means that thousands of newcomers were exposed to the community in a very positive way. It’s not unreasonable to assume that some will return for other vacations in the future, Baker said.

“I couldn’t buy the kind of goodwill and the image-enhancement value of attracting 12,000 people of that demographic to Westbrook,” he said. “In terms of the positive exposure of an event like this, it’s priceless.”

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The city is now bidding on a variety of other events. The trick to winning a bid is to convince the event organizers that the venue owner and host city can meet all of their needs, Baker said.

“Everything they (Tough Mudder) said, I said, ‘I’ve got relationships. I can get that,’ ” he said.

Baker said putting all the pieces together to host a major sports event can be time-consuming and complicated, which may explain why more communities in Maine aren’t trying to do it.

Many municipalities only consider the potential costs of going after such events, rather than focusing on the benefits, he said. Others may not think their communities are large enough or sophisticated enough to pull it off.

“You’ve got to start thinking of yourself as a world-class player, or else no one is going to see you as one,” Baker said.

SOME RISK REQUIRED

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Putting on a major sporting event is not without its risks, said Brian Corcoran, a commission board member and president of Shamrock Sports & Entertainment in Portland.

Your community can lose money and scare away other potential organizers if an event doesn’t go over well, he said.

Corcoran was a key player in bringing the PBA to Bayside. He said it required selling more than $100,000 in corporate sponsorships before the league would even consider coming to Maine.

Fortunately the PBA Tour event sold out quickly and exposed Portland to hundreds of thousands of viewers nationwide on ESPN. Still, Corcoran said he thinks the commission and its partners can do an even better job of leveraging the next event to generate sales revenue for Maine businesses.

Another challenge will be making sure all areas of the state benefit from the commission’s efforts, he said. Corcoran said he can envision mountain biking events in northern Maine, and bull-riding championships in a more rural setting.

“We’ve got a pretty avid Western-lifestyle community here in Maine that is pretty underserved,” he said.


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