SportsTravel Podcast: Recent Episodes

SportsTravel

In-depth discussions with leaders in the sports-event industry.

]Andrew Kurka lives by a simple motto: "Work hard, have grit, and don't quit."

That spirit has served him well for years, from his days growing up in Alaska, through the devastating injury that rendered him unable to walk, and ultimately to multiple medals at the Paralympic Games. In Italy last winter, he won a bronze medal in the men's super-G sitting competition and then was elected as a flag bearer at the closing ceremony.

In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, SportsTravel Managing Editor Ted Keith talks with Kurka about his remarkable life, including the ways in which he continues to not just inspire people from afar but give hands-on help to others in his situation and how he lives his motto every day.

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You may have noticed that one of the world’s largest sporting events has begun, the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Destinations across the United States, Canada and Mexico have known for years that these weeks are coming, but now that they are finally here, we thought we’d take some time as an editorial team and talk about where we’ve been, what we expect, and maybe even some predictions on how the U.S. team will fare and who may win it all. In this episode, SportsTravel's editors break down our thoughts of which host cities may stand to benefit most, what the legacy of this event may ultimately look like and what the sports events industry should be looking at most closely as the games proceed.

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For decades, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association has been polling Americans on which sports and activities they participate in and how often. The result is the Topline Participation Report, an annual survey that goes into amazing detail on 126 different sports and activities ranging from basketball to birdwatching. By tracking those rates — both those who participate casually and those who participate regularly in a given sport or activity — SFIA has a wealth of data, including which of those sports and activities are on the rise and which are declining. They can also break down those stats by age, gender and demographics, a bevy of information that any sports event organizer or destination should be interested in digesting.

[article_sidebar]Some of the headlines from this year’s report: Americans are moving more than they ever have, some 250 million people reporting at least some level of activity in something, which is a record. And yet, most are still not meeting the minimum recommended threshold of moderate physical activity. And pickleball? It’s rise to the top over the past few years is no joke and continues to position the sport as the fastest-growing in the United States by participation. We’ll get into why that is and what it means for the future, as well as many other aspects of this wide-ranging report with Jenny Karn, the senior director for SFIA who played a key role in this year’s research.

And we’ll also explore SFIA’s new 2034WARD initiative, which aims to take advantage of the mega events headed to North America over the next decade to inspire the next generation to try new sports.

In this episode, Karn will break down SFIA’s take on the report and which sports could be the next to capture the attention of the American public.

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George Washington University sports management professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti has just attended her 23rd consecutive Olympic Games, once again playing a volunteer role at the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina. Along the way, she has become a keen observer of the logistics behind the Games, what works and what doesn’t. In this discussion with SportsTravel Publisher Jason Gewirtz, who was also in Milan and Cortina, she discusses her grades for the Games. We break down the pluses and minuses, including the Opening Ceremony, transportation, signage, volunteers, food and beverage, venues, overall atmosphere and more.

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At the end of every year, our editorial staff at SportsTravel likes to take a look back at the year past and a look ahead to the year to come. And this year, we’re joined by our newest addition, Paul Stevens, who became senior editor of SportsTravel in November after a career in the business-to- business media space. He’s also a true sports fan, which makes him the perfect person to discuss the year ahead.

[article_sidebar]And what a year 2026 is shaping up to be with the World Cup headed to North America, the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games headed to Milan-Cortino, Italy, and so many more events on the schedule both here in the United States and abroad. In this episode, we break down the trends we’re watching across professional, collegiate and youth sports, and make some bold predictions about the outcome of sporting events in the year to come.

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Like the millions of people living with disabilities, Paralympians have a multitude of ways they acquired those disabilities. Some like Ezra Frech were born with disabilities and many others like Lindi Marcusen acquired those disabilities later in life, in her case in a car accident just two weeks after her wedding. Nonetheless, the Paralympic Games have provided an amazing outlet for Ezra, Lindi and others to show everything they are capable of at the highest level of sport. In Ezra’s case, that resulted in two gold medals in Paris in the 100 meters and the high jump in his classification, and in Lindi’s case, it has allowed her to become the fastest woman on the U.S. team. But just because they have had success on the field doesn’t mean their travel experiences are easy. In fact, each of them has faced challenges as they seek to transport both themselves and their equipment to locations around the world, including to the world’s most prestigious sports events. It’s one of many reasons they are both now spokespeople for a new campaign organized by Ottobock, the global medtech company, called “The Invisible Class,” which is aiming to put a spotlight on the organizations that are actually succeeding when it comes to providing a better experience. And with December 3 being International Day of Persons with Disabilities, this conversation will take a look at what some of those travel challenges can be. But we’ll also take a look ahead at the opportunity that the Paralympic Games in Los Angeles will present to engage more people in the types of conversations that turn some of those travel challenges around.

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Carlos Ezpeleta joined Dorna Sports as an intern in 2007, took on a full-time role in 2013 and has since worked his way to Chief Sporting Officer at MotoGP, directly responsible for the Sporting and Technical areas of the Championships as well as overseeing activities in the Promoters, Operations and Talent Promotion departments. Dan Rossomondo’s career began in advertising sales at Madison Square Garden and has since taken him to IMG, Time Warner Global Media and the NBA. From his role as Senior Vice President of Global Partnerships and Media at the NBA, Dan moved to become Chief Commercial Officer of Moto GP and Dorna Sports in 2023. We discussed the recent announcement of Guenther Steiner taking ownership of a Moto GP team, the series since Liberty Motor Group took a new majority role, the intersection of travel and sports and how they look to elevate spectator experiences, working in a "traveling circus" that other more stationary sports don't go through and the future outlook for the series, especially in the United States. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

This episode of the Sports Travel Podcast is being sponsored by TEAMS Europe, the world’s leading conference and expo for the sports-event industry. TEAMS Europe unites sport event organizers with destinations, venues and suppliers interested in hosting or supporting their events. TEAMS Europe in 2026 will be March 17–19, 2026 at The Belfry, an award-winning hotel and resort located less than 10 miles from the city center of Birmingham, England. For more details on everything planned at TEAMS Europe, please visit teamseurope.com.

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Raffaella Paniè is an Italian designer and creative director, serving as Director of Brand, Identity, and Look for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano Cortina. She leads the design of the Games’ visual identity, including the emblem, pictograms, mascots and medals. Her work emphasizes a modern Italian spirit, sustainability, and community, showcasing Italy’s creativity on the global Olympic stage.

She joined the Podcast to discuss how the design process was developed for the Games, how many version of the Olympic torch and medals were designed before settling on what was revealed to be the final design, where the design inspiration came from and if any design can ever be truly finished before being released to the world.

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Rob Stull was elected president of the International Modern Pentathlon Union in November 2024, a four-year tenure that includes the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles. Stull was an alternate to the 1984 U.S. Olympic modern pentathlon team, competed in both fencing and modern pentathlon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, then competed in modern pentathlon at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Starting at the LA28 Games, modern pentathlon will replace equestrian riding with obstacle racing after a long process that took several years. Modern pentathlon is a five-sport event that, for 2028, will include fencing, freestyle swimming, obstacle course racing, laser pistol shooting and cross-country running. We discussed the lead-up to LA28, Stull’s work at the international federation since being elected president and much more.

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John Kemp may be the perfect person to be at the helm at the Lakeshore Foundation. As you’ll hear in this episode, his passion for the adaptive sports community isn’t just professional. It’s personal. Born without arms and legs, Kemp had to adjust at an early age to his surroundings, and managed to play baseball even if his career may not have been worthy of the Hall of Fame as he’ll discuss. He has, however, gone on to a Hall of Fame career when it comes to advocacy for the disability movement. His previous leadership roles include serving as the national executive director of United Cerebral Palsy Associations, president and CEO of VSA Arts and VSA Arts International, and as general counsel and vice president of development for the National Easter Seal Society, among others. In 1995, he co-founded the American Association of People with Disabilities. He recently served as president and CEO of the Viscardi Center and Henry Viscardi School in New York.

But in 2021, he was named president at CEO of the Lakeshore Foundation. The foundation has taken on different forms over the years but traces its origins all the way to 1925 as the Jefferson Tuberculosis Sanitorium. Since then, its focus has turned to a much wider spectrum, and in 1984 began as something close to its current form as the Lakeshore Foundation, with Jeff Underwood taking the helm as the first president and CEO. As the relatively new leader, Kemp oversees a program that is now an official U.S. Paralympic Training site, and serves over 4,000 people annually through its various programs. Last year, it opened its Sports Science & Performance Center, a first-of-its-kind program that will help fuel the pipeline for Team USA and other elite athletes through a performance lab, strength and conditioning center and nutrition lab among other things.

In this conversation, we’re going to discuss Lakeshore’s amazing history, the rise of the Paralympic movement, the opportunities ahead with the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles and perhaps most importantly, what host cities and venues need to know about serving the community of adaptive sports athletes.

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Major League Cricket returned to Broward County Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida, over the Fourth of July weekend for a series of T20 cricket matches featuring the league’s six franchises from New York, Texas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington. The stadium in Lauderhill was one of the sites that was used for the 2024 T20 Cricket World Cup, of which Johnny Grave was the chief executive officer. Grave took over the position of CEO at Major League Cricket in the league’s offseason and joins the podcast to talk about the sport’s growth in the United States and plans to further that growth, being part of the LA28 Olympic program and much more.

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Under the direction of BobKendrick, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City has become a must-see venue for fans of baseball and American history. It chronicles the journey of black baseball players and coaches, highlighting the elite-level competition the Negro Leagues provided. The museum is currently 10,000 square feet, but Kendrick has started the “Pitch for the Future Campaign” to raise $35 million to build a new, larger museum. Kendrick has also become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years thanks to his appearances on the video game MLB The Show, in which he narrates a special Negro Leagues storyline.

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Ray Allen played 18 seasons in the NBA and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 2018. Allen was a 10-time NBA All-Star and won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the 2000 United States men's basketball team. In 2021, he was selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, having won two NBA championships, one with the Boston Celtics and one with the Miami Heat.

Leroy Arrington is General Manager at ESPN Wide World Of Sports In Disney World and leads the operations, strategy and guest experience at one of the largest and most prestigious multi-sport venues in the world. They joined the Podcast for a recording over Memorial Day Weekend about being a sports dad, the youth sports scene, organizing events at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and much more.

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Ed McCaffrey has long known success on the football field. From his college days in Stanford, where he met his wife who was an accomplished soccer player for the university as well, to his playing days with the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos from 1991 through 2003, his career found him as teammates with other legends of the sport and in rare company. His Super Bowl win with the 49ers and two victories with the Broncos put him in the game’s elite — plus a fourth ring from the Broncos as a team broadcaster during their most recent victory at Super Bowl 50.

But it was Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego when the Broncos upset the favored Green Bay Packers — think John Elway helicoptering his way into the end zone — that put the Colorado franchise over the hump after several tough Super Bowl losses years earlier. After his playing days, McCaffrey stayed involved in the sport, coaching at the high school and college level in Colorado and raising four sons who played college football, with three now in the NFL as either players or coaches, including Christian McCaffrey, who was a Heisman runner-up at Stanford and remains one of the game’s elite players.

In this conversation we talk with Ed about his playing days and what it was like to travel the NFL circuit with his teammates, his approach to getting his kids involved in sports, his background running youth sports camps, the inclusion of flag football at the 2028 Olympic Games and his burgeoning food empire that once featured his own breakfast cereal and now focuses on mustards, horseradish products and protein snacks. It’s a revealing conversation with someone who remains a hero in the towns in which he played.

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SportsTravel’s coverage of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, which will be the biggest ever with 48 teams and 16 host cities spread across three countries, has been extensive. Throughout the process from FIFA’s visiting host city candidates, to the day of the announcement in July 2022 of which cities will host games and an inside view of what it was like, SportsTravel has detailed the saga ahead of the schedule announcement in early February.

[article_sidebar]To say that soccer and enterprise are in Dan Hunt’s blood would be putting it lightly. Son of late American sports icon Lamar Hunt, whose legacy includes founding the American Football League, the Kansas City Chiefs, Major League Soccer and World Championship Tennis, Dan Hunt brought FC Dallas to Frisco, Texas, and made Toyota Stadium a reality. Hunt not only is president of FC Dallas, but he was also chair of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Dallas Bid Committee. In this episode, he discusses the Hunt family legacy, what the World Cup will mean for Dallas and how Frisco has emerged as a sporting destination.

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For decades, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association has been polling Americans about their participation levels in more than 100 sports and activities. The data, released annually in their Topline Participation Report, breaks those numbers down by individual sports and activities, types of sports like water sports, winter sports or racquet sports, and also by gender, age and income levels. The result is an incredibly comprehensive look at who is playing what and what the barriers might be for others based on their gender, age and income levels among other factors. Their latest report, whose research was led by senior director and head of research Alex Kerman — our guest on this episode — is filled with interesting data.

[article_sidebar]As far as the headlines go, the great news is that people are moving more. For the first time, the report concluded that over 80 percent of Americans are active in something, which means they participate in one of those sports or activities at least once last year. And what are they playing? Well, once again pickleball is by far the fastest-growing sport, at least by percentage of new people reporting that they play. Pickleball, however, isn’t the only success story. Team sports in general are trending upward, including many that were on the program at the last Olympic Games or that will make their debut at the 2028 Olympic Games, like flag football, which was another winner. In this conversation, we break down the numbers from this fascinating report, talk about why the growth sports are growing and what the next big thing may be in the years to come.

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Laura Gainor’s background in pickleball is significant, as she was around the sport in some of its earlier days before it became a national phenomenon. During her time in marketing at USA Pickleball, she witnessed first-hand how the sport was taking off. Today, of course, the numbers speak for themselves. In last year’s Topline Participation Report produced by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, the group’s researchers reported that pickleball grew 58 percent in participation in the previous year. And over the past three years, that participation has grown by some 223 percent.

As a result, brands are looking to get involved with the sport any way they can and event organizers are searching for ways to activate a pickleball experience around their events as well. And development is coming in, too. Entire communities around the country are being planned with pickleball courts in mind to allow people more access to play. Gainor saw the writing on the wall for all these trends and launched Pickleball in the Sun as a way to help brands, event organizers and others navigate the fast-evolving world of pickleball. In this conversation, we discuss how those brands look different today, what you should know about including pickleball as a component of your event, where the sport is going and what, if anything, may slow its momentum.

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Travis Murphy’s work background is a fascinating one, and one that you may not realize is a key component of the sports industry behind the scenes. Before starting his company Jetr Global Sport + Entertainment, he previously served as the senior director of international government affairs for the National Basketball Association. In that role, he helped thousands of NBA, WNBA, 2K, G League, and Basketball Africa League teams, players, staff and their families navigate the complicated world of global travel. He also managed the NBA’s relationships with the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and other government institutions, working with those government partners to create sustainable basketball initiatives both domestically and abroad. In that regard, he also played a key role in the release of Brittney Griner from her detainment in Russia in 2022. Murphy has extensive international experience, having served as a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service, working at embassies in Ecuador, Suriname and Cote d’Ivoire to name a few. And he also served in Washington, D.C., in the Sports Diplomacy Division of the Department of State.

All of that background puts him in a unique position to advocate for policy changes in Washington around issues of immigration that stand to have large impacts on some of the largest events headed to the United States. In just one area — but one with outsized importance — the issue of wait times for visitors to get an appointment for a visa to visit the United States is raising some serious alarms. In Colombia, for example, there is nearly a two-year wait time to get one of those appointments, meaning if you are a traveler hoping to watch the Colombian team at the 2026 World Cup, you’re already too late. In this conversation, we talk about why those waits are so long in so many countries around the world and what our industry can be doing to help reduce those times. We also talk about the impact a new administration in Washington will have on the ability for spectators to easily come for international events and how the broader national discussion on immigration policy in general could impact that ability as well. It’s a deep dive into some serious but important topics that will have lasting implications on the willingness of event organizers overseas to consider the United States as a host to their events in the years to come.

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The team at SportsTravel has racked up thousands of miles this past year in the name of sports-related travel, attending sporting events at all levels from youth tournaments to the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl. Along the way, we’ve assembled some observations of those events and the logistics behind them. In this conversation, Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Managing Editor Matt Traub and Associate Editor Justin Shaw recap some of what stood out to them and stories in the industry that resonated as well. And they’ll take out the crystal ball for some thoughts on trends they’re watching in 2025, events they’re looking forward to as well as some bold predictions for the industry and some teams they think might win it all in the year ahead.

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At this year’s TEAMS Conference, Indianapolis was announced as the winner of Best Host City at the SportsTravel Awards. Since July of 2023, Indianapolis has hosted events that total an estimated $500 million in economic impact, including the 2023 Big Ten Football Championship, the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, the 2024 NFL Combine, 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds, and the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming. And there’s plenty more still to come the rest of this year and in the future. Leonard Hoops and Patrick Talty join the podcast to discuss the Big Ten Conference, look back at some of 2023’s biggest events and look ahead to 2025 while also talking about how Visit Indy and the Indiana Sports Corp work together on events.

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After serving as chief executive officer of USA Weightlifting for nearly 10 years, Phil Andrews was appointed USA Fencing CEO in August 2022 to oversee the national governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of fencing in the United States. This past summer, USA Fencing won four medals overall at the Olympic Summer Games in Paris, including its first ever team Olympic gold in women’s foil and Lee Kiefer repeating as women’s foil gold medalist in an all-American gold medal match against Lauren Scruggs. With the LA28 Games four years away, it’s a big time in the U.S. Olympic sports movement and Phil discusses what USA Fencing has planned to capitalize on its Paris success, how it puts together an events calendar and what it looks for in partners and much more.

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The NCAA is in a transformative era and that includes its championship landscape. Acrobatics and tumbling, equestrian, rugby, stunt, triathlon and women's wrestling are working their way through the NCAA’s Emerging Sports for Women program with the hopes of gaining enough university participation to become NCAA championships — with some on the cusp of joining the ranks. In this recording from the TEAMS Conference & Expo held recently in Anaheim, the leaders of these efforts discuss where they are in the process and what destinations can do now to help build out other events leading up to a championship, including camps, clinics and combines.

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As president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, Geoff Freeman is the leading advocate for the more than $1 trillion U.S. travel and hospitality industry. In this role, he is charged with positioning the industry to seize emerging opportunities and further establishing travel as a vital economic force in the United States. Before taking over at U.S. Travel, Freeman was president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, the trade association for America’s $2.1 trillion food, beverage and consumer products industry. And before that, he served five years as president and CEO of the American Gaming Association. So his background in lobbying for interests of various industries is substantial, including, of course, the travel industry. He’s also a father of three who has made the circuit of amateur sports travel, so he knows what he speaks when he discusses the sports-related travel market.

Now, with some of the world’s most high-profile events headed to the United States over the next decade, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Los Angeles, the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup, 2033 Women’s Rugby World Cup and 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Utah, the time has arrived where these mega events may lead to policy changes. Chief among those is the issue of visa wait times, which can be hundreds of days for people wanting to enter the United States from certain countries, including several expected to compete less than two years from now in the World Cup. For some of those fans, unless something changes, it may already be too late to get to those matches in 2026. These are important issues, especially for destinations that are investing millions of dollars in hosting matches with the expectation that they will lead to foreign visitation.

These are some of the themes we’ll be discussing with Freeman on stage at the TEAMS Conference and Expo, September 23–26, in Anaheim, California. But in this episode, we introduce the discussion with Freeman and talk about ways destinations of all sizes can better advocate and lobby for the important work they do day in and day out.

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Ezra Frech was born a congenital amputee but started off his athletic career mostly competing against non-disabled athletes. It was when he was 8 years old that his father took him to his first para competition, and given that support, he was able to perform at his highest level.

After that day, Ezra and his father made a promise to each other that they would bring para events to Southern California, and with that, Angel City Sports was born. Angel City Sports is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides year-round adaptive sports opportunities for kids, adults and veterans with physical disabilities or visual impairments. And now, Frech is a Paralympic gold medalist, having won the 100 meters and the high jump T63 at the Paris Games.

This interview, recorded before the Games through the P&G Athletes for Good Fund, discusses his preparations ahead of his trip and competition in Paris, his work in the Paralympic space, his hopes for the 2028 Paralympic Summer Games in Los Angeles and much more.

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Like many Olympians and Paralympians, Susannah Scaroni has had to overcome her share of challenges. In her case, a car accident at the age of 5 caused her to need a wheelchair for mobility, a journey that led her to adaptive sports. Her initial experience was not positive. But when she discovered a welcoming adaptive sports program in Spokane, Washington, her interest grew.

As her training grew, so did her accomplishments. And eventually that led to a spot on the Paralympic team at the 2012 London Games in the marathon, which has become something of a specialty. She competed again in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020 and in Paris will compete in her fourth Paralympic Games, having qualified for the marathon, the 800 meter, the 1500 meter and the 5000 meter races.

While she has traveled the world competing in some of the biggest events around, the process has not been easy, and still poses challenges. Not all event organizers are doing the best they can to accommodate adaptive sports athletes, even at events as large as the World Championships. In this discussion, we trace Saroni’s journey to adaptive sports, talk about her experience at the Paralympics and other major sports events and delve into things event organizers and host cities can and should be thinking about when it comes to the next generation of para athletes.

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You may not immediately recognize the name Danny Boy O’Connor. But if you’ve turned on a radio or attended an in-person sports event in the last 30 years you certainly know his music. As a co-founder of the group House of Pain, he was on the ground floor of the group’s biggest crossover hit, “Jump Around.”

As you’ll hear in this conversation, he was a connoisseur of music growing up in New York and then Los Angeles. He also was immersed in hip hop culture, including the breaking scene. So when the sports version of break dancing takes center stage in Paris, he’ll be watching with keen interest. In this episode we’ll talk a bit about what breaking has meant to him and what it continues to mean to participants around the world.

But we’re also going to talk a surprising amount about tourism, specifically what O'Connor has accomplished in an effort to preserve the legacy of the book and movie version of “The Outsiders.” Years after House Pain, he found himself on tour through Tulsa where the book was based, and found the house used in the film as the home of the brothers who make up the main characters. Shocked at what had become of the home, he led an effort to purchase and restore it, an effort that has now led to a museum to the franchise, which also saw a Broadway musical version debut last year that took home a Tony Award for Best Muscial. In the process of restoring the home, O'Connor not only fell in love with the town, but he has become one of its biggest tourism advocates.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about all of these things and you may come out surprised at how the worlds of music, sports and tourism can often interact seamlessly.

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Dan Butterly has been the commissioner of the Big West Conference since July 1, 2020. He took the job at a time when Covid was wreaking havoc on the sports landscape and led the conference through uncertain times. Butterly has negotiated a large streaming contract with ESPN-plus and has ambitious designs for the future of the conference and its athletics. He is a member of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Competition and Oversight Committees, and the NCAA Council Working Group on NIL.

In this episode, Butterly discusses the ever-changing worlds of NIL and conference realignment, how the Big West can capitalize from the demise of the Pac-12, getting his conference more exposure, and what went into the decision to move the men's and women's basketball championship tournaments from California to Henderson, Nevada.

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The Lionel Messi effect in his second season with Inter Miami is well underway in Major League Soccer, which has had five matches this season with an attendance of more than 60,000 or higher. MLS’ total attendance is up 13 percent compared to the same date last season and with the Copa America ongoing, the international club competition will segway into one of Major League Soccer’s main in-season points of emphasis, the Leagues Cup matching up each team from MLS and Liga MX in Mexico.

Executive Vice President Camilo Durana joined the podcast recently to discuss the state of the league, the upcoming second annual Leagues Cup, MLS’ developing relationship with Liga MX, broadening the league’s reach through Soccer United Marketing, and upcoming FIFA events in the U.S. highlighted by the 2026 World Cup and of course the effect of Messi within the league’s international reputation.

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One of the most high-profile sports in the Olympic Summer Games in Paris will be basketball. The USA Basketball teams have been some of the most dominant in Olympic history in any sport. The women’s team looks to extend its streak to eight consecutive gold medals and the men’s team looks for its fifth in a row, having only lost six games in Olympic history. The U.S. also will have teams in the blossoming 3x3 competition that will be held on Place du Concorde in one of the more stunning locations in Paris.

At the center of it is Chief Executive Officer Jim Tooley, who has been with USA Basketball for over 30 years. We discussed USA Basketball’s state of preparations before Paris, the amount of planning needed for the back and forth between Paris and Lille for group-stage games, USA Basketball’s relationships with Las Vegas and abroad ahead of exhibition games in London, the growth of the international game and 3x3 and celebrating the national governing body’s 50th anniversary.

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Skip Gilbert is no stranger to the sports industry. As a former professional soccer player, the sport may well be his true love. But his previous stints included one with the USADA, the anti-doping agency, as managing director of operations, marketing and development; managing director of professional tennis operations and tournament manager for the U.S. Open in New York; CEO of USA Triathlon; a vice president for the Arena Football League; and chief marketing officer of USA Swimming. Along the way, he’s also become one of the industry’s staunchest advocates for kids being involved in sports for their own health and well-being — and being involved in as many sports as possible to avoid specialization.

Since 2020, he has been at the helm of US Youth Soccer, the largest youth sport organizations in the United States, which is focused on having a positive impact on the lives of America’s youth through the game of soccer. The group’s mission is to make soccer the preeminent youth sport in the country, and they are well on their way. Soccer participation has held steady or grown in recent years and the big events headed to the United States, including of course the FIFA World Cup in 2026, may only serve as a catalyst for continued growth, or at the least an aspirational event that could well fuel future growth in the sport.

In this discussion, we sit down with Gilbert to discuss the state of youth soccer, the opportunities and challenges ahead for the sport, the rise of the professional leagues for both men and women, and the importance of diversity when it comes to kids getting active in sports.

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In 2019, the Sports Events and Tourism Association, or Sports ETA, embarked on an ambitious State of the Industry report to attempt to put a value on the economic impact derived from sports events and sports-related travel. The timing was fortuitous as it set a baseline for future studies just before the pandemic. In 2022, a second report analyzed the pace of recovery from that pandemic, looking at data from 2020 and 2021. But the latest report arguably paints the fullest pictureyet not just at how the industry has recovered, but how it continues to thrive.

The headline numbers are that sports-related travel had a $52.2 billion direct economic impact in 2023. More than 200 million travelers were reported, generating more than 73 million room nights. But perhaps most impressive of all, some 63 percent of destinations surveyed said that sports are their largest generator of room nights. Think about that statistic for a moment and you can start to grasp the true power and potential of this market.

John David took over as Sports ETA’s president and CEO last year after decades as an event organizer and executive himself at USA BMX. So his perspective, and his support of continuing this vital research, are the perfect match to wade into the details of the full report. And Greg Pepitone from Tourism Economics, as the lead researcher in the project, also brings his perspective on where sports fit into the mix since his organization is one of the leading data providers for the overall travel industry. In this discussion, we talk with John and Greg about the not only the headline numbers in the report, but deeper insights that were analyzed about how event organizers make their decisions on locations, what kinds of services travelers are spending their money on, which areas of the country are sourcing the most events and much, much more.

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If you’ve ever seen traditional diving at the Olympic Games or in real life, you know that the cleaner the dive, the better the score. The goal in that discipline is to enter the water as straight as possible with as little splash as possible. But starting in the 1970s, a new generation of divers began something just a bit different. Starting in Norway, these diving daredevils started jumping from substantial heights, doing crazy stunts on the way down, entering the water in a hunched position not just for safety but to create the largest splash possible. Imagine something that combines the flips of snowboard halfpipe with the satisfaction of a cannonball and that gets you close.

But now Døds Diving or Death Diving if you’re Norwegian isn’t up to speed, has become a legitimate event circuit, hosting world championships since 2008. Leading the charge is Paul Rigault, CEO and Co-Founder of the Døds Diving League and Døds Federation, and Stine Brun Kjeldaas, the league head of sports and media, and a World Champion, X Games gold medalist and silver medalist in snowboarding at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano. In this episode, we talk with Paul and Stine about what it takes to host one of these events, what an ideal host venue looks like, what the atmosphere is like at a Døds competition and why in the world anyone would want to hurl themselves off a high dive platform, spin around on the way down and splash their way to victory. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Ron Price has been the chief executive officer of Visit Phoenix since July 2021. Prior to the move to Phoenix, Price had stops in Arlington and San Antonio, Texas, as well as more than a decade with Marriott in several places, including Denver and Southern California. Phoenix has become a basketball hotbed, having hosted the NCAA Men’s Final Four in March with the Women’s Final Four on tap for 2026. Phoenix will also host the WNBA All-Star Game this summer and the NBA All-Star Game in 2027. And then there's always the lingering question of when the region will again host the Super Bowl, which it last did in 2023. There’s a lot going on in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and Ron Price is the man at the center of it.

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Scott DeRue was named the new chief executive officer of The Ironman Group in January, joining the organization from Equinox, where he served as president. At Equinox, DeRue oversaw a business that included 107 fitness clubs, a connected fitness platform, a large personal training and coaching practice and digital commerce and media properties. Ironman’s portfolio includes hundreds of events across more than 50 countries in triathlon, running, trail running, road cycling and mountain biking and a suite of digital training platforms and programs for athletes. We discussed with Scott his motivation for taking the job at Ironman, his early work since being hired within the organization, assessing the business, thoughts on the mass participation industry and Ironman’s plans going forward.

Among the topics in this episode

Early plans for coming in and assessing the business (1:48)
What was the interest and motivation in taking the CEO job (2:51)
Ironman’s plans both nationally and worldwide (3:50)
Organizational room for improvements (5:29)
Ironman's place in the sports sustainability landscape (9:32)
The process of fact-finding during the interview process (11:40)
What he brings to the job as a new executive (13:24)
What from Equinox and his academic background will translate to Ironman (14:39)
Thoughts on the mass participation event industry (16:47)
His training for a future Ironman event (18:25)

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Every year, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, or SFIA, takes on a number of research projects designed to offer insight into the world of sports through the lens of participation, equipment sales and other metrics. But the Topline Participation Report is one of the longest-standing and most ambitious surveys the organization conducts. Each year, thousands of people are surveyed about which one of 124 different activities they participate in and how often. The end result is a wealth of data and trends that tracks which sports are gaining popularity and which are struggling.

You may have heard the stat that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States. That’s true, and that stat comes from and is verified by this report, which shows the wildly popular sport up another 50 percent in participation in the past year. We’ll go into why that remains the case, but the pickleball data only scratches the surface of this report. And in an Olympic year when many otherwise obscure sports get their highest visibility, you can expect some interesting things in the year ahead, which we’ll go into as well. Another trend that’s on the rise: team sports. More and more people are participating as a group and loving it. And we’ll go into which team sports they are liking the most. All of this information is invaluable for those who are in the business of organizing and hosting sports events. And the best news of all — both for the industry and for humankind — is that overall, participation in sports events is up and inactivity is down, a trend that we can all get behind. So sit back and enjoy this conversation with SFIA President and CEO Tom Cove as we dive into the data to pick out all the trends you need to know.

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This year, Kevin Klipstein will celebrate 20 years at the helm of US Squash, the national governing body for the racquet sport that has been steadily growing in participation and membership over that time. While the NGB has seen remarkable success through projects such as a national training center in Philadelphia, and exposure in new markets, the sport itself for years has been seeking a holy grail of sorts. That effort, of course, is a place on the Olympic program. That effort began with a campaign to get into the 2012 Games in London, and in each subsequent Games after that. But for one reason or another — and there were different reasons each time — the sport could never quite clear the hurdle. But when it came time to pitch for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, everything finally lined up perfectly. Squash was one of several sports approved for the program, which of course presents a whole new world of opportunity for leaders like Klipstein, who spend their entire days thinking about ways to expose the sport they love to even more people.

And as you’ll hear, one of the beauties of squash at that highest level is that its glass showcase courts can be stationed just about anywhere. In fact, international events have been staged outside the pyramids in Egypt and on building rooftops, to name a few. Where exactly it will be staged in Los Angeles remains to be seen — as will its potential place in the 2032 Games in Australia and beyond. But as you’ll hear in this conversation, the sport has plans to grow regardless of its upcoming presence on sport’s largest stage.

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If you’re familiar with the sports history of the city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it may be as the site of the famed “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. But in recent years, another effort is aiming to attract visitors to the African nation and build a lifelong culture of sport through running. Since they launched the Congo River Marathon, Rolly Kayumba and Nancy Bachmann have been slowly adding to the event’s footprint, and using the opportunity to run along the Congo River and in the city of Kinshasa as a way to develop runners domestically and visitors internationally. Like all new events, it has had its challenges and opportunities, many of which are not unique to those faced by organizers around the world. But this year’s race, which is scheduled for June 2, 2024, may be the biggest effort yet. In this episode, SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Kayumba and Bachmann about how the race began, how it has grown and how running is being used as a method to promote sports tourism.

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USA Swimming is known around the world as one of the powerhouse teams in the sport and this year expectations are high as always ahead of the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris. This year’s Games will be the second for Chief Executive Officer TimHinchey but the first in which he does not have to lead the national governing body under pandemic-related conditions. With a high-profile year that includes not only the Olympics but the World Aquatics championships that recently started in Qatar and a host of national level meets around the country, we caught up with Tim recently to discuss how USA Swimming places events around the United States, anticipation for this year’s Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and much more.

Among the topics in this episode

USA Swimming's strategy in putting together this year’s schedule of events with an eye toward athletes having their peak performances at the Olympic Summer Games in Paris (1:52)
The U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, which starts June 15 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, and how progress and anticipation is coming along (3:31)
If a successful Trials would give USA Swimming encouragement to trying to do more events in NFL-sized and non-swim specific venues (5:48)
When putting together an events calendar whether it be this year or years to come, what USA Swimming looks for in partner destinations and venues (7:41)
His second Olympics with USA Swimming and the adjustment in being in a ‘normal’ Olympic cycle this time around (10:07)
The pressure of leading one (if not the) most dominant swimming teams in the world (12:30)
The importance of a strong Paris 2024 performance in setting up the next four years ahead of LA28 (14:12)
Thoughts on the plans for open water swimming in Paris to be held in the River Seine (16:09)
Amount of time as a chief executive officer that he spends on swimming and athlete issues compared to sponsorship, SafeSport and more (17:55)
Changes on the collegiate landscape and how it affects development of elite swimming prospects (20:55)
The best perk of being USA Swimming's Chief Executive Officer (23:24)

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The first weekend in February will be an extraordinary one in Orlando, Florida, which hosts the U.S. Olympic Trials for marathon on February 3, followed the next day by the NFL Pro Bowl Games are at Camping World Stadium. The big weekend comes on the heels of news that two of the city’s recognizable sports venues will receive more than a combined $600 million in renovations in the coming years. We chatted with Jason Siegel, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission, about the process in landing the U.S. Olympic Trials for Marathon and the preparation that has gone into planning the event, what the big weekend ahead will be like for locals, the news of renovation funds committed to area venues and more.

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The Greater Columbus Sports Commission will host this year’s U.S. Figure Skating National Championships, the first time the event will be in the Ohio destination. Nationwide Arena will host over 400 athletes, coaches, and officials, plus thousands of fans over the seven-day event. The venue is within walking distance of many hotels and restaurants to ensure a smooth fan experience. It’s a major event to kick off a busy year ahead for the Greater Columbus Sports Commission and Linda Logan, which will host more than a half-dozen other collegiate and national governing body events in the first six months of the year. We talked with Linda Logan, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, and Jesse Ghiorzi, director of marketing at the Greater Columbus Sports Commission, about planning for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, what it took to win the bid and much more.

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Sam Joffray is no stranger to the Super Bowl. He has been to every big game since 1997 in some capacity. Whether it was leading a bid for the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation or as a consultant or vendor, Joffray has a wealth of experience when it comes to the NFL’s crown jewel. So when Las Vegas welcomed the Raiders to the city and built world-class Allegiant Stadium four years ago, they needed someone to run point on a Super Bowl bid. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority hired Joffray to be the president and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee. Following a successful bid, Sin City will host its first Super Bowl on February 11. Joffray and his team have been hard at work to make sure the event is a success, and are hopeful that Las Vegas can get into the regular rotation of Super Bowl host venues is the coming years.

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Last year the editors of SportsTravel got together for a year end recap for the first time and we thought it would be a great idea to do that again. In this episode, Managing Editor Matt Traub, Associate Editor Justin Shaw and Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz take a look at their biggest takeaways from the past year, stories that resonated with them, stories that flew under the radar, the biggest international news and their favorite events to cover. But they'll also take a look at stories they will be following in the year to come and will each make a bold prediction for 2024. And pay attention to those predictions as last year, two of their three ended up coming true with Matt predicting chaos in conference realignment and Justin impressively calling that the Denver Nuggets would win the NBA championship with Nikola Jokic being named MVP. Jason's prediction of the University of Colorado winning the College Football Playoff National Championship failed to come to fruition — although for three weeks this fall when Colorado football was the talk of the nation, it seemed like even that one would come to pass. So sit back and take a listen to our year in review and our look ahead to 2024.

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J.C. Poma spent almost 7 years with Richmond Region Tourism, working his way up from manager to director to vice president before leaving earlier this year. He didn’t venture far, as he went about 20 miles south of Richmond to the small city of Chesterfield, Virginia. Since arriving in Chesterfield, his task has been to build up the Play Chesterfield brand within the Sports, Visitation, & Entertainment department, and both utilize and upgrade the various facilities in the area. Poma’s philosophy of building from within has Play Chesterfield focused on creating spaces for residents to play and interact, while also looking to bring in tournaments and events from outside the county to drive revenue. We talked with Poma about what his short and longterm goals are, how he and his team are promoting the new Play Chesterfield venture and the delicate balance of keeping the locals happy, while establishing the destination as a prime spot for sports tourism.

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Flag football being named to the 2028 Olympic program earlier this year completed an impressive rise for the sport. Having the sport in the Los Angeles Games is a massive win for the NFL in broadening its global reach. On the IOC’s part, having the NFL promoting the Olympics does the same in expanding its reach and marketing to fans of a sport who may have never bothered with the Games in the past. And having gender equality in flag football is a big reason why the IOC was open to the idea of the sport being on the program; more than half a dozen states have sanctioned girls’ flag football as a varsity sport. We talked with USA Football Chief Executive Officer and President Scott Hallenbeck about the sport’s inclusion into the Olympics, its rise among girls and female participants, and much more about the sport’s global reach.

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Khalid Cannon didn’t have the most direct route to the world of Ivy League athletics, but he certainly made the most of his opportunity. Growing up on a chicken farm in Alabama, his father was incarcerated when he was just a toddler, a development that led him to sports as a youth as an outlet for the challenges his family naturally faced. Not only did he excel athletically in baseball, football and other sports, he excelled academically as well. So much so that when it came time to consider playing football in college, he caught the eye of coaches at Yale and eventually played offensive line for the Bulldogs while pursuing degrees in chemistry and geology. After graduation, his career included a stint at a gold mining corporation until a conversation with a fellow former Yale football player turned him on to a fledgling nonprofit called Put Me In!

The mission of Put Me In! is to be a support to the more than 5 million kids who are estimated to have a parent who is incarcerated. CIPS, or children of incarcerated parents, are a group that doesn’t get much attention in the world of sports-related travel. But Put Me In! exists to give those kids scholarships to cover the costs of sports equipment, league fees and travel to tournaments. The organization has started small but is rapidly expanding, bringing on Cannon recently as its first full-time employee in the role of president and chief program officer. As you’ll hear in this conversation with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, they’ve found perhaps the perfect person for the role. As the issue of equity in youth sports continues to rise to importance, Put Me In! is a terrific example of how some groups are looking to level the playing field.

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Like many elements of the incredibly fast-growing sport of pickleball, the PPA Tour does not yet have a long history, having been founded in 2018. But its growth has also been very much on the upswing. Today the tour offers 24 events nationwide and a prize purse exceeding $5 million. Carvana is on as a title sponsor and interest on all levels in the tour continues to rise. Recent months have also seen the signing of a slate of professional players, many of who are former tennis stars like Sam Querry, Jack Sock and Genie Bouchard to name a few. The recently announced merger with Major League Pickleball, an entity that has taken more of a team approach, also promises to grow the pie. And the PPA Tour recently became the first league to allow gambling on matches, opening the sport to a new audience of potential bettors on the action.

In this conversation, we chat with tour’s president, Bryce Morgan, about where the tour has been, where it’s headed and trends the PPA is watching by way of venue development, site selection, participation rates and more.

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The Maryland Cycling Classic, a one-day competition sanctioned by USA cycling and UCI, the sport’s international federation, is the centerpiece of a full Labor Day weekend of activities throughout the Baltimore region. The event is owned and operated by the Sport and Entertainment Corporation of Maryland, of which Terry Hasseltine is the president. We chatted with Terry recently about getting the event off the ground last year after two previously scheduled attempts were cancelled because of the pandemic, what goes into the planning and logistics of the event, if anything has changed from the inaugural year to this year and what the event could grow to be in future years. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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The EsportsTravel Summit is the world’s largest gathering of esports tournament and video-game event organizers and the only event focused on the travel side of the esports industry. Presented by SportsTravel and hosted by Destination Toronto, the 2023 EsportsTravel Summit was held July 12–14, 2023, in Toronto.

One of the major programming sessions at the event was on grassroots esports. Recognizing the important work being done at the grassroots may be even more crucial to a destination’s success in building an esports ecosystem of its own. In this session, attendees were able to hear the experiences and advice from a panel of experts that included Katie Briggs, president at LanFest; Melissa Burns, founder and chair of Esports Canada and Gerald Solomon, executive director of the NASEF.

2:15: What is the big-picture state of grassroots esports?

5:45: The differences between grassroots esports and the other disciplines of the industry

9:25: The value that grassroots esports brings to destinations around North America

14:50: Esports parents and the role they have with encouraging grassroots esports involvement

21:32: Sustainability in grassroots esports and having educational facilities encourage its involvement

27:37: The authenticity of grassroots esports and keeping that feel to encourage attendance and family involvement

32:57: How grassroots esports can serve as a model for the rest of the industry on various levels

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The National Council of Youth Sports has member organizations that go beyond just sports organizations. Destination marketing organizations are also involved as are groups whose missions it is to foster a great youth sports experience. But the sports organizations that belong to the National Council of Youth Sports represent some of the largest groups by participation in the country. Some 60 million young people are registered to play sports in these member organizations, making the council the perfect place to engage in deeper conversations about youth sports. And that’s some of what we’ll dive into in this deep conversation with Wayne Moss, who has been the organization’s executive director since 2018. Specifically, we’re going to discuss the top of safety in youth sports, a topic that encompasses not only emotional and physical safety in the form of abuse prevention but also physical safety when it comes to preventing injuries on the field of play. And as the country saw in real time last season when the Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin nearly lost his life during a Monday night football game, this topic is especially top of mind of late.

Youth safety is one of several themes that will also be part of the council’s upcoming National Youth Sports Week, an opportunity to engage in a deeper dialogue nationwide about youth sports. National Youth Sports Week will be the first week of October in 2023 and will coincide with our TEAMS Conference and Expo, which will be held October 2nd through the 5th in the Palm Beaches of Florida. Wayne Moss will be one of our featured speakers at the conference as we delve even deeper into the topic of youth sports safety. But in this conversation, you’ll get a preview of that discussion and a greater understanding of the work that the National Council of Youth Sports is putting into that dialogue.

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Sustainability has never been a more important factor in the sports market with events that are some of the most high-profile in the world. Tim Trefzer has led sustainability efforts at Mercedes Benz Stadium, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park, the Super Bowl, College Football Playoff and the Atlanta Falcons among others. He also co-founded the Sustainable Sport index, the sports industry’s first benchmark of sustainability. SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub talked with Tim recently on how sports organizations can use its events to educate people about climate change, how much sustainability has increased as a priority in sports and its venues, the most important topics of focus still needed for sports venues to be sustainable and much more.

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The second annual TEAMS Europe included leading experts from global organizations including the National Football League, the International Olympic Committee, World Rugby, the International Tennis Federation, LaLiga, Major League Baseball and more.

TEAMS—the world’s leading conference and expo for the sports-event industry—unites sport event organizers with destinations, venues and suppliers interested in hosting or supporting their events. The conference returned to the ExCeL Center in London from June 27–29, 2023. In addition to business development through a marketplace with pre-arranged appointments, the conference featured educational sessions focused on some of the most significant events and issues in the industry today.

1:48:How North American Professional Sports Have Found New Markets

12:00:Rugby World Cup: 2023 And Beyond

21:22:Games Learning: Best Practices from the Olympic Movement

29:10:The Legal Arena: Trends You Need to Know

36:35:Sustainability Now: How Your Organization Can Be More Responsible

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USA Gymnastics is looking to build a national training and wellness center that will serve as the hub for the national governing body and has issued a request of expressions of interest directed at destinations and real estate developers targeting a 2026 project completion, said President and Chief Executive Officer Li Li Leung during a discussion on the SportsTravel Podcast.

The NGB is seeking a partner to design, build, operate and maintain a campus comprising a modern training and wellness center and ancillary facilities for the national team in various disciplines as well as develop the overall grassroots growth of the sport. USA Gymnastics does not have a centralized training and wellness center currently. The new center may also become home to the NGB's national headquarters.

In this episode, Leung discusses why the NGB is seeking the new location as well as preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games.

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You wouldn’t be much of a sports fan if you didn’t have a bucket list of events you want to see in person before you, well, kick the bucket, as it were. While plenty of people talk about such a list, few of us write it down, and even fewer of us set out to actually accomplish it. And that makes David Carter unique. Carter is a national authority on sports business and strategic marketing, and the author of four books about the sport business industry. He founded the Sports Business Group in 1999 following more than 10 years of consulting for the sports and entertainment industries, and he’s an adjunct professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business with an emphasis on sports.

But perhaps of even greater interest, Carter has set out with his best friend to tackle their own bucket list of sports events — 25 events before they turn 75 years old. Carter is serious about the endeavor as well. He’s put his list to a spreadsheet, with ground rules about what events he’d like to see and where. No country can be visited twice. No sport should be watched twice. These are just some of the ground rules. But the effort also comes with considerable planning and more than a few lessons about why you should put some thought into planning your own list should you try to tackle it. In this conversation, SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Carter about what he’s learned some nine events into his own list of 25 events and what observations he has about today’s hottest issues and trends in sports events.

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USA Boxing Executive Director MikeMcAtee discussed the years-long process in coming with plans for a new international federation in the wake of the IOC’s expulsion of the International Boxing Association, the various issues the national governing body has had with the IBA — including fight manipulation — and more in this episode. McAtee also discussed the future plans for World Boxing; whether the international drama surrounding the sport has been a topic of discussion at USA Boxing events; and the recent news that the IOC has promised boxing's spot in the LA28 program is secure.

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Dr. Kris Alexander had an upbringing not unlike many of us in that when he discovered the joy and excitement of video games, he never looked back. But unlike many of us, he has turned that passion into a successful career, not just playing the games but educating the future work force that will help the industry continue to flourish and thrive. As professor of video games at Toronto Metropolitan University, Alexander has built a program that now includes about 300 students and has produced the Red Bull Gaming Hub, an active events center that serves as not just a laboratory of sorts for his students, but a functioning venue that has hosted esports and other neighborhood events.

As you’ll see from this discussion, Alexander is passionate about video games and esports and has a compelling case to make as to the benefits that games can bring in educating students and as sources of continued business development. In this conversation with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Alexander goes into his own fascinating background in video games as a player, his transition to academia, the future of esports and video gaming and some behind-the-scenes insight on what it takes to successfulyl execute a TED Talk viewed by more than 1 million people.

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Jim Scherr was named the first chief executive officer of World Lacrosse in 2017. Prior to that, he was CEO of the United States Olympic Committee from 2003 to 2009. Scherr, who competed as a wrestler at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games, was the first Olympian to serve in that position with the USOC. Before joining the USOC, Scherr served as executive director of USA Wrestling from 1990 to 2000, and also was the National Collegiate Hockey Conference commissioner from 2012 to 2013. During his time at World Lacrosse, Scherr has grown the sport globally ahead of the 2023 World Lacrosse Championships from June 21-July 1 in San Diego.

Scherr discusses the World Championships with teams from 30 nations competing for the championship, getting a version of lacrosse on the docket for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, his background in the Olympic movement, the social media power of the Premier Lacrosse League and much more.

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Izell Reese is the chief executive officer of RCX Sports, a youth sports experiences business, running and operating leagues, camps, combines, tournaments and events. Reese has been the Executive Director of NFL Flag since October 2019, working closely with the NFL to expand the sport of flag football around the world. RCX has also recently entered into partnerships with the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer for youth programs. Before entering the youth sports world, Reese played safety in the NFL for seven years.

Reese describes how his experiences in youth sports and the NFL influence how he works as CEO at RCX Sports; partnering with the NFL on NFL Flag and the exposure the sport got from the Pro Bowl; new alignments with the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer; strategies on increasing participation of girls in youth sports; and a special moment coming for him in his hometown of Dothan, Alabama

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One of two international federations in the esports world, the International Esports Federation’s mission is to further esports on a global scale. With 130 member national federations, IESF president Vlad Marinescu discusses esports on a global level, the international outlook for the industry, esports at the grassroots level around the world compared to the United States, the tightening of financial backing within the professional esports space, esports’ possible place in the Olympic sports landscape and much more.

This episode is sponsored by the EsportsTravel Summit, the world’s largest gathering of esports tournament and video-game event organizers and the only event focused on the travel side of the esports industry. Presented by SportsTravel and hosted by Destination Toronto, the 2023 EsportsTravel Summit will be held July 12–14, 2023, in Toronto. The biggest brands in the esports world will attend the event and their representatives are featured as presenters. For more details on everything planned, please visit esportstravelsummit.com.

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Houston and Dallas were recently in the spotlight as hosts for the NCAA Men's and Women's Final Fours. Each of the destinations hosted tens of thousands of visitors from out of town, providing a spotlight for Marriott, which has sponsored the NCAA for seven years through its Marriott Bonvoy program. The sports-related travel market was the first segment of the travel industry to come back in big numbers as the world started to reopen from the pandemic and the pace has only continued in the months since, a trend that Marriott executives have watched with interest.

In this conversation between SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub and Mandy Gill, Marriott vice president of global marketing for the United States and Canada (recorded on location at the Men’s Final Four in Houston), we discuss the current state of the sports-related travel industry, Marriott's NCAA partnership and much more from the hotelier’s point of view on the strength of the industry.

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Until it just recently released its new report, Sports ETA as an industry association had not surveyed its members about their compensation and salary information for about 10 years. A lot has changed since then. And, of course, a lot has changed just within the past few years coming out of the pandemic, which led to massive turnover in the industry and a crop of new employees entering the space. The latest survey, which was sponsored and supported by Northstar Meetings Group, reveals some hard facts about not just what industry professionals are being paid, but how they are being compensated as well.

[article_sidebar]In this conversation between SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz and the leading researchers on the report — Jennifer Stoll of Stoll Strategies and Cambria Jones of SearchWide Global — we explore those issues. That includes how many sales people on average are employed at destination marketing organizations, what kinds of benefits those employees are now looking for, the concerns that still exist over how some of these organizations are funded and, of course, what industry professionals are being paid.

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For years, the Sports & Fitness industry Association has studied which sports people participate in and how often. Perhaps just as important, they also track the number of people who say they don’t participate in anything at all. For professionals in the sports-event industry, there is a tremendous amount of interesting data in the SFIA’s recently released Topline Participation Report, including which individual sports are trending well and which team sports are trending well. If you’re the organizer or a host city of a sports tournament or event, knowing where the interest lies could be the key to a successful future. As you’ll hear, there is no doubting the incredible growth that pickleball has seen not just in the past year but for the past several years. But pickleball is not alone. In fact, all racquet sports are on the upswing, including tennis, which has the largest participation of all. In this conversation between SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz and SFIA President and CEO Tom Cove, we take a deep dive into the organization’s latest report and talk about what sports and trends he’s keeping an eye on next.

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The NCAA Men’s Final Four, for the fourth time in its history, will be held in Houston starting with the semifinals on Saturday and the championship game on Monday. For the third time the games will be at NRG Stadium, home of the NFL’s Texans and host to many events each year. The venue will also host the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship and be one of the host cities for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.

SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub talked with Janis Burke and Holly Kesterson from the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority about the planning that has gone into this weekend’s events both on and off the court, working with the NCAA for years leading up to Saturday, civic engagement throughout the community, the hardest parts about putting on the event and what it means for the city to be the site for Jim Nantz to end his tenure as the play-by-play voice of the Men’s Final Four.

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Lisa Motley has worked in the Las Vegas events and tourism industry for more than 20 years. She has held various roles in her six-plus years at Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. As senior director of sports and special events, Motley works tirelessly to bring all sizes of sporting events to Las Vegas. She was instrumental in organizing the 2022 NFL Draft, and has held a large role in securing some of the biggest sporting events in the world for Sin City. This November, Las Vegas will host Formula 1 for the first time, and then three months later will welcome Super Bowl LVIII to Allegiant Stadium.

In this conversation with SportsTravel Associate Editor Justin Shaw, we talk with Motley about what it takes to bring these massive events to Las Vegas, and what to expect from the city as a host. We also discuss all of the college basketball action in Las Vegas, including this year's NCAA Men's West Regional Final and the 2028 Men's Final Four. Motley also divulges the one event that she still wants to check off her sports bucket list.

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One of the biggest sports in each Olympic Summer Games is swimming, which has been part of the Olympic program since 1896. But what casual fans of swimming may not realize is that the sport’s international governing body, World Aquatics, also oversees water polo, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and high diving throughout the world. The international federation has been around for decades but recently underwent a dramatic rebranding from FINA to World Aquatics.

One of the leaders of the federation is American Brent Nowicki, who has been executive director at World Aquatics since June 2021 after spending more than eight years at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. SportsTravel Managing Editor MattTraub talked with Nowicki recently about the organization’s rebranding, the international scene especially in a time of turmoil in the Ukraine, the importance of the U.S. market five years out from the Los Angeles Games and how growing up in Buffalo has shaped his work ethic as an international sports executive based in Switzerland.

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Gary Hernbroth spent 17 successful and colorful years in the luxury hotel business in sales and operations leadership, including stints with Westin, Fairmont and Park Lane Hotels. It was there, especially in Northern California where he lives now, that Hernbroth discovered the power of sports-related travel at a time when it took some convincing to explain the potential benefits of the market. Hernbroth did this in part by attracting professional sports teams to stay at his properties when they were in the Bay Area to play the region’s professional teams. But once team travel secretaries began telling their counterparts about the services Hernbroth’s hotels could provide, word traveled fast and the case for going after sports groups became easier to make. In 1995, Hernbroth founded Training for Winners, taking his years of industry knowledge and sharing it through motivational talks and workshops for others in the industry. Today, he travels the country speaking to groups to encourage their sales professionals and leaders to be the best they can be. In this episode, we talk with Hernbroth about his early awakening in sports-related travel, what makes the market different than other group segments, and what advice he has for sales professionals in the current climate.

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The United States Figure Skating National championships was first held in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut, and has been the spot for fans of the sport to see the best in the history of the sport, including Dick Button, ScottHamilton, Brian Boitano and Nathan Chen on the men’s side, to women’s sports icons such as Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hammill, Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan. This year’s event is in San Jose, California, at the SAP Center. SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub talked with Bob Dunlop, the senior director of events for U.S. Figure Skating about what goes into organizing the national championships, how the event is more than just the elite competition seen on television, working with destinations and venues over the years including during the pandemic, best practices in the business and the one event that he still wants to check off his sports bucket list. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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The Winter World University Games is the largest multi-sport winter event in the world, after the Olympic Winter Games. This year’s event starts January 12 and is an 11-day international festival and competition combining high-level sport with educational and cultural events, all taking place in Lake Placid, New York, and nearby towns. With more than 2,500 participants from over 50 countries, the Winter World University Games will reignite the celebrated history of the 1932 and 1980 Olympic venues, many of which have been recently modernized.

In this conversation, SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub sits down with Mike Pratt, president and chief executive officer of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, and with Jim McKenna, the longtime president and chief executive officer of the Lake Placid CVB. We discuss not only the new venues and the logistics for the Winter World University Games but the legacy of Lake Placid’s Olympic history and how it still has an impact on sports tourism in the Adirondacks region and what he hopes will be this event’s legacy both in the field of competition and beyond when it comes to sustainability in sports.

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This past year has been an eventful and historic one at SportsTravel as we celebrated the magazine’s 25th anniversary since its first issue. During the past year, we promoted longtime senior editor Matt Traub to the position of managing editor and hired Justin Shaw, another sports journalism veteran as our new associate editor. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, Matt, Justin and Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz take a look back at this past year from our key takeaways about the year, to story lines that resonated with us to our favorite events we saw in person. But we also take a look ahead at what trends and story lines we’re watching in 2023 and specific predictions we have for the industry and the sports world in the months ahead. So sit back and take in this discussion from the entire SportsTraveleditorial team.

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From its signing in 1972, Title IX has become the backbone for which women’s sports have climbed from decades of inequity and ignorance to the spot they have today. Particularly for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement, the past decade has seen the biggest names and biggest accomplishments come from the women’s teams. Indeed, women’s professional sports teams saw record attendance and ratings this season, suggesting there has been tremendous progress at the elite level of women’s sports, especially in recent years. But there of course remains considerable work ahead.

At the recent TEAMS Conference and Expo, we assembled an impressive group of women who have accomplished some amazing feats in sports both on the field and off. Our discussion included:

Hilary Knight, an Olympic gold medalist, three-time Olympic silver medalist and eight-time world champion in in hockey, who holds the record for the most all time points and goal scored at the women’s world championships;

Amanda Kraus, the CEO of USRowing and one of the few female chief executives of an Olympic national governing body;

Linda Logan, the longtime CEO and president of the Greater Columbus Sports Commission in Ohio and a trailblazer in the sports tourism industry;

Kaleo Maclay, a three-time Paralympic medalist for TEAM USA’s sitting volleyball team, including two golds and a sliver, with 14 years competing at the elite level,

And Benita Fitzgerald Mosely, a gold medalist in the 100-meter hurdles at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles who is now president of the LeagueApps Fund Play foundation and VP of community and impact for the youth sport management technology platform.

In this discussion moderated by SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub, we talk to each of these titans of sport about their own journeys and experience with Title IX and what remains to be done in the future for true equality to be achieved.

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Youth sports are a bigger industry than any professional sports league in the country and are valuable for destinations of all. With multi-sport venues continuing to be built around the country, the industry shows no signs of slowing, but challenges remain from keeping children safe at events to getting them engaged in the first place.

In a discussion that was recorded at the TEAMS Conference & Expo in Oklahoma City, we brought together a panel of leaders in the youth sports space to discuss the industry's most pressing issues, opportunities for sports organizations and destinations to work together, and the future of youth sports across the country.

The session was moderated by SportsTravel executive editor and publisher Jason Gewirtz and the panel included Ju'Riese Colon, chief executive officer of the U.S. Center for Safe Sport; Megan Ditchman, vice president of marketing and partnerships for Elite Tournaments; Sarah Dyer, senior director of operations for EventConnect; and Wayne Moss, executive director for the National Council of Youth Sports.

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The last World Cup sliding event in North America was held in 2019. All three North American tracks lost events — including world championship races in Whistler and Lake Placid — because of the pandemic, with international officials relocating those events to Europe and Asia. American and Canadian sliders spoke out about a wish for more races on home ice and how having essentially the first half of the bobsled and skeleton World Cup seasons in North America should be a boost to both programs. And now this year, that finally comes true with the World Cup season starting November 22 in Canada before going to Park City, Utah, from December 1-3 and then to Lake Placid, New York, for the world push championships and World Cup event.

[article_sidebar]Aron McGuire was a member of the USA Bobsled national team from 2003 through 2006 and after his athletic career was completed, he worked for USA Track & Field and the USOPC, eventually becoming the senior director of Olympic & Paralympic Training Centers. He was named USA Bobsled and Skeleton chief executive officer in January 2020 and has since steered the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic, a successful Olympic Winter Games performance in Beijing with new stars on the world scene and the return of international competition to North America. He also describes the process of how to become part of the USA Bobsled and Skelton national team and what they look for in an athlete.

In this conversation, SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub sits down with McGuire to talk about the upcoming events, how he has helped grow the sport, how athletes can become part of the bobsled or skeleton national teams and much more.

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When the COVID-19 pandemic began, mass participation races were some of the first to shut down. And when events started to return, they were some of the last to come back by nature of their key element: bringing large amounts of people together to experience a similar event. But mass participation events — running races, triathlons, cycling tours, obstacle races, to name a few — remain some of the biggest potential economic drivers for cities. Perhaps more importantly, they remain tremendous ways to improve the quality of life of residents in a city or for participants who travel to compete.

For years, Chris Robb has been following trends in the space. Robb is the founder of Mass Participation World, which includes an annual business conference in the space, and is a leading advocate for the industry. During the pandemic, he leaned into his specialty of trying to unite a disparate industry, launching podcasts and webinars to help organizers get back on their feet and supporting research to show the potential impact these kinds of sporting events can have on communities no matter where in the world they are located.

In this conversation, SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz sits down with Robb to discuss why mass participation races are struggling to get back on track, the root causes for what has been a slow return, the "mass participation ripple effect" and what role destinations can and should be playing to help the industry recover to its fullest.

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Wayne Moss began his career in professional sports, working for the Detroit Lions and the Baltimore Orioles before taking the call to service and joining the recreation divisions in his hometown of Cleveland and later Dekalb County in Georgia. He then worked 15 years at the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, where he led program planning and assessment efforts. In 2018, he was appointed the executive director of the National Council of Youth Sports, whose members serve an estimated 60 million registered participants in organized youth sports programs.

The NCYS works to promote the essential role of youth sports in America, with a goal of enhancing the experience of all participants by reducing barriers and creating safe environments. And that’s no small task. With issues such as ensuring athlete safety, increasing participation rates, finding enough qualified coaches and volunteers, and providing adequate access to organized sports, the youth sports landscape has challenges left and right. And yet there remain opportunities thanks to the work of the National Council of Youth Sports and others in the space. As part of its advocacy efforts, the council will promote National Youth Sports Week, October 24–29, with an emphasis on all the things the organization stands for in its efforts to get more kids involved in sports and to provide them a safe atmosphere in which to do so.

In this discussion with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we talk about the work the NCYS is doing on the ground, what more can be done and the challenges and opportunities that await.

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Max Siegel has been the chief executive officer at USA Track & Field since May 2012, making him one of the longest-tenured CEOs in the U.S. Olympic movement. During that time, USA Track & Field has remained one of the best-performing NGBs and made huge strides in the sponsorship landscape thanks to a long-term deal with Nike.

[article_sidebar]Coming off the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, the first time the event has been held in the United States, Siegel sat down with SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub to discuss how the world championships went, plans to grow the sport of track and field dramatically leading up to LA28, sponsorship and branding on the NGB and individual athlete levels and so much more.

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There aren’t many kids who have the opportunity to be exposed to the Olympic version of the sports of canoeing and kayaking, but Joe Jacobi was one of them. After being exposed to the sport in a summer camp near the Washington, D.C., area where he grew up, Jacobi found himself on the path to elite competition.

Years later that led to international rankings for him and his partner Scott Stausbaugh in the two-man version of whitewater canoe slalom. By the time the 1992 Olympic Summer Games came around in Barcelona, they were poised to take a serious run at the podium. That effort, which culminated in the first U.S. gold medal ever in canoe slalom, came after years of intense preparation and training. After competing, Jacobi went on to administration at the then-governing body of the sport, USA Canoe/Kayak, which moved its headsquarters to Oklahoma City after that destination began a major investment in paddlesports.

Now, he is back living near Barcelona as a a performance coach and author, who latest book is called "Slalom: 6 River Classes About How to Confront Obstacles, Advance Amid Uncertainty and Bring Focus to What Matters Most." In this conversation, SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Jacobi about his path to the Olympic Games, the triumph he had in Barcelona and the lessons he learned from a career in a sport whose very nature lends itself to thinking differently when obstacles are thrown into our path.

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Phil Andrews is credited with making multiple changes for the better over a decade of service at USA Weightlifting, including the past six years as CEO, and overseeing an elite team that at the Tokyo Olympics took home its first Olympic silver in women’s weightlifting. Among his challenges at the governing body was a deep debate internationally over the future of the sport, one that very well may see weightlifting removed from the Olympic program in future years over concerns about their approach, or lack thereof, to doping at the international level. Andrews was a fighter for the anti-doping cause, an effort that he pushed as he also fought to expand the sport of weightlifting to the widest audience possible in the United States.

In July, he was named CEO of USA Fencing, an organization that has had its own challenges in recent years, especially in areas surrounding SafeSport. But it’s an organization with an even larger membership than weightlifting — around 40,000 members compared to about 30,000 — and one that produces some sizable events, including its Summer Nationals, which were most recently held at the convention center in Minneapolis. Andrews will spend the next few months on a listening tour among his new constituents, but before he does, he sat down with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz to discuss his own history in the sport, the future of the NGB’s events, its desires to partner more with potential host cities and how in the world light sabers may fit into the equation.

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Spikeball is a beach and park game played with four people and described by some as a warped version of 2-on-2 volleyball that's heavy on spikes, drop shots, trickery, and diving around. The sport, originally created in 1989 before its modern revival in 2008, has grown not just throughout the United States but internationally.

Nora White, senior sport development manager at Spikeball, got hooked after seeing the sport while hanging out with her family and has made it into a career, helping organize events of all shapes and sizes. She joined us on the podcast to discuss her involvement in the sport, what it’s like for those who have never played the sport before, the demographics of tournaments, its spread internationally and what its growth plans are going forward.

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At 37 years old, Travis Shumake may be new to drag racing as a driver, but he’s definitely not new to the sport. His late father, Tripp Shumake, was the winner of multiple NHRA titles and his mother, Susie Shumake, is a member of the Arizona Drag Racing Hall of Fame for her contributions to the sport. But it wasn’t until recently that Travis decided he wanted to give it a go behind the wheel. And he is doing so in full knowledge that when he hits the pavement at Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka for the Menards NHRA Nationals, he will become the first openly gay driver on the circuit. It’s a milestone he doesn’t take lightly and one that he is hoping will spark new conversations among the sport's fans base, which over the years has leaned conservative. But his story isn’t the only one that may spark new conversations.

[article_sidebar]Shumake's car, a 24-foot, 4,000-horsepower nitromethane-burning, rainbow-colored drag racer, will be sponsored by and feature the branding of Visit Topeka, the city’s convention and visitors bureau. As you’ll hear from Visit Topeka president Sean Dixon, who joins the conversation, the convention bureau is looking to promote itself as open to all visitors and will be using the sponsorship to promote the upcoming and inaugural Pride Kansas, a statewide pride festival that will be held in Topeka, September 17–24. For Visit Topeka, backing Shumake isn’t just a sports sponsorship play. It’s a play for new visitors and an effort to promote the city as welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community.

In this conversation, we talk drag racing, Shumake’s journey to the circuit after being around the sport his whole life and how a convention bureau is looking to change perceptions by going all in on a sports sponsorship deal that it hopes will attract new visitors to the Kanas destination.

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If you don’t follow surfing terribly closely, you may not know that Coco Ho comes from a legendary surfing family that is considered Hawaiian surfing royalty. Her father is pro surfing pioneer Michael Ho, considered the godfather of the North Shore surf scene on Oahu. Michael had a 25-year career that included two Triple Crows and finished No. 3 in the world. Meanwhile, her Uncle Derek was the 1993 World Champion and a four-time Triple Crown winner. And her older brother Mason competed as well, eventually coaxing her into competition.

[article_sidebar]The results were immediate. After a solid amateur career, Coco joined the Championship Tour in 2009, won the Rip Curl Search event in Portugal, and nabbed the rookie of the year honor for finishing No. 4 in the world. At 17 years old, she was the youngest woman ever to make the women’s tour of the World Surf League. An injury caused her to pull out of the 2019 season, but she is working her way back and plans to compete at the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach.

The knee injury that set her back isn’t the only thing in her career that has been a challenge. Years back, she was diagnosed we atopic dermitis, a skin condition that is exacerbated by exposure to sand, water, salt, sweat, stress — all the things that go along with being a professional surfer. In this conversation, we talk with Coco about her upbringing in one of the toughest sports around, her journey to the tour, her ability to cope under adversity and her thoughts about surfing’s debut in the Olympics last year in Tokyo.

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The World Games is an international multisport event that gets underway on July 7 with the Opening Ceremony at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama. The event will culminate a seven-year planning process after the Alabama destination was first awarded host duties and will feature 30 official sports in 54 disciplines, which will be contested at 30 venues across the Birmingham area. We talked with World Games Chief Executive Officer Nick Sellers and David Galbaugh, vice president of sports sales and marketing for the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau, about everything involved with the event.

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TOCA recently became the largest operator of indoor soccer centers in the United States after adding locations in Dallas, Cleveland, Nashville, Chicago and Denver. In addition, the company launched TOCA Social, a soccer entertainment and dining venue, in London with plans to expand to additional two UK locations as well as Dallas in 2023. TOCA was founded in 2016 by two-time U.S. World Cup and former MLS and English Premier League midfielder Eddie Lewis, building off a training idea that he developed during his professional career. TOC recently announced a landmark investment from Premier League player and England national team captain Harry Kane, one of the world’s most high-profile players.

In this episode, we talk with Lewis about how TOCA came about, how it intends to expand and why the sport lends itself to the entertainment space as well as the training space.

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This is the second time we’ve had Al Kidd and Jennifer Stoll on the SportsTravel Podcast. The last time was in early 2020 when the pandemic was just becoming evident and an incredible amount of unknown lied ahead. The Sports Events & Tourism Assocaition had just released data from its first comprehensive State of the Industry report, which covered data from 2019 — right before the world fell off a cliff. In turns out the timing of that study couldn’t have been more perfect since it reflected the high point of the industry, and offered a benchmark to use to determine how the recovery from the global pandemic would be measured in years to come. That 2019 report showed that sports-related travel had a direct economic impact of $45 billion that year.

Fast forward to now, and Sports ETA has its latest data that covers how bad things got in 2020, but more importantly, how things rebounded in 2021. The headline number out of the latest report, sponsored by the Northstar Meetings Group, is that sports-related travel accounted for $39.7 billon in 2021 — almost a full recovery to the 2019 numbers.

Nonetheless, the full State of the Industry report paints an even more detailed picture of what the industry looked like last year. From hotel room stays to tax revenue generated, to impacts on sports-related staffing at CVBs and sports commissions and sports-related budgets in those destinations, the latest report is a data gold mine. In this episode, we sit down with Kidd, the president and CEO of Sports ETA, and Stoll, the founder of Stoll Strategies, to talk through not only the details of the statistics in the report, but how we can all use this information to advocate for the importance of sports-related travel and tell a more global story of why the work we do day in and day out matters.

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Starting June 5 at Exploria Stadium, the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games will unite more than 5,500 athletes and coaches from all 50 states and the Caribbean and 125,000 spectators. This event will have 19 Olympic-style team and individual sports and 30 events at venues across Orlando. We talked with the president and chief executive officer of this year’s Games, JoeDzaluk, about the work that has gone into setting up the event over the past four years, how COVID interrupted and changed planning, how Orlando has adopted the Games as a major event and much more.

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One of the many sports vying for the chance to be included in the program for the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles is teqball, a soccer-based sport founded in 2014 in Hungary. Played on a specially curved table called a Teq Table, the sport has 60 official registered clubs and will have several tournament events throughout the summer on ESPN’s various platforms. We talked with AJNwosu, the chief executive officer of USA Teqball, about what the sport is about, his introduction to teqball, growing the sport across the country, its Olympic dreams and more.

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Neil Schwartz, the president and chief data officer of SBRnet, has spent decades researching sports fans, including their willingness to travel. In his company’s latest research report — the 2022 Study of Sports Fans — he has insights on which sports fans travel the most to attend or participate in events. He also has research showing which specific collegiate and professional teams’ fans are most likely to travel to away games in different sports. The data also analyze esports fans and their willingness to travel to events, reaching some interesting conclusions. Combined, the data offer a fascinating insight into the mindset of the traveling sports fan and provide valuable information for destinations and venues looking to book events in the future.

Schwartz will also be a featured presenter at the upcoming EsportsTravel Summit, June 21–23, in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he will present more of his esports research. For more information on that event, visit esportstravelsummit.com.

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The United States will host the Rugby World Cup in 2031 and Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2033, planting a flag in the ground for the sport stateside by World Rugby, the international federation in charge of the event. The announcement also completes a remarkable comeback for USA Rugby, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2020 before it emerged from bankruptcy last year. In this episode, SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub talked with RossYoungand JimBrown about the bid process, the emotions of World Rugby’s official announcement, deciding on 2031 and 2033 for the tournaments it wanted to host, what this will mean for the sport throughout the United States, what the organization has learned from when it hosted the 2018 Rugby Sevens World Championship in San Francisco and much more.

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In the increasing competitive collegiate landscape, it is becoming harder and harder to stand out. But Coastal Carolina University is a prime example of a university that has managed its growth well, fielding a football team that has become a powerhouse out of nowhere in recent years and a formidable basketball program. Its new football stadium is already paying dividends, hosting the Myrtle Beach Bowl, one of the newest bowl games on the schedule. Coastal’s longtime athletics director, MattHogue, joined us recently to explain how one school has plotted its growth and what other universities and communities can learn about how to make a splash on the largest stage possible. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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ScottHowson was named president of the American Hockey League in February 2020 with plans for a short transition period before assuming control ahead of the 2020–2021 season. Obviously the sports landscape, along with the world landscape, looks a lot different now than it did a little more than two years ago. Howson worked during the pandemic to steer the league through a shortened 2020–2021 season that saw no Calder Cup playoffs. This season, the AHL has steered through the winter difficulties of the omicron variant to put itself on track for a full regular season and playoffs thanks to the support of medical experts and the National Hockey League as well. The AHL’s future also looks bright with the incoming addition of a team in the Coachella Valley starting next season in a new venue.

In this episode, Howson talks with SportsTravel managing editor MattTraub about how a kid who grew up loving hockey turned it into not just a playing career but a post-playing career as a sports executive.

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If you went back to 1997, you would find a sports-event industry that was truly in its infancy. The National Association of Sports Commissions, now known as Sports ETA, was only a few years old itself at the time. It was a few years prior to that when Tim Schneider started to identify something interesting in the other magazine that he published called Association News. Why were so many sports organizations reading a magazine about association management, he wondered? The answer was that they were on the hunt for destinations and venues to host their events, and no other publication seemed to have information about those available locations and venues.

Like the true entrepreneur he is, Schneider decided to come up with a product to fix that. While the magazine took a few years to materialize, that innovative thinking eventually led to issue one of SportsTravel, published 25 years ago in January 1997. In the years since, the magazine has grown with new departments and features, and has successfully made the leap to the digital world as well. The industry it covers, of course, has also experienced incredible growth and evolution. Whereas a handful of destinations at the time dedicated themselves to sports marketing and offering their available venues for sports events, hundreds of destinations do that today, and do it well. And the number of events and event organizers has only grown in that time, too. Schneider guided the growth of the magazine and you could make the case that he helped guide the growth of the industry itself, leading to his being inducted into the very first class of the Sports ETA Hall of Fame in 2017.

In this conversation, we talk with Schneider about how SportsTravel began, how it has evolved and what destinations and sports organizations should be focusing on now as they chart the next 25 years of the industry.

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The Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis was the biggest gathering in women’s college basketball since the pandemic began more than two years ago. And in the light of last year’s NCAA gender equity report, all eyes were on the destination to make sure that women’s sports were celebrated not only on the court and in the Target Center, but that the experience extended beyond the arena to every detail including how the city and NCAA partners treated the event — including where people stayed during the weekend.

Julius Robinson, the senior vice president and global brand leader for Marriott Hotels, joined SportsTravel managing editor MattTraub on location in Minneapolis to discuss how Marriott plans for big events like the Women’s Final Four, what it’s like working with the NCAA as its official hotel partner, how important sports-related travel has been to Marriott's business the past two years, sports tourism trends the hotel chain has seen lately and what the one big sports event he still would like to check off his bucket list.

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There is nothing quite as valuable to sports organizations and destinations that host their events than data. And one of the leading organizations that has been diving into data analysis for years is the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. The association, whose members include sporting goods and fitness brands, manufacturers, retailers and maerkters, has one of the deepest data pools in the country, annually surveying Americans 6 years old and up about their levels of participation in a list of sports that now tops 120 different activities. Every year, the association issues a Topline Report detailing which of those sports and activities are on the upswing and which are headed down. Toss in a worldwide pandemic that has fundamentally shifted the way everyone participates in the activities they love and you’ve got a data set that is ripe for analysis and contemplation for all who organize sports events at all levels.

Tom Cove has been the assocaition’s longtime president and CEO and his take on why some sports are doing better than others is always worth a listen. In this episode, we discuss with him those activities that are faring well and why, what impact the Olympics is having on sports that are part of the official program, what sports-event organizers should be thinking about when it comes to retaining athletes, and how age and income can determine not only your level of activity but the types of things you might go out and try. It’s a fascingaitng conversation and one with considerable takeaways for anyone who has their hand in the sports events industry.

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When the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association announced that it was moving its annual men's and women's conference basketball tournament to Baltimore after 13 years in Charlotte, North Carolina, it sent shockwaves shockwaves through the collegiate landscape. The event, which attracts about 100,000 people with an estimated economic impact of $50 million has become about much more than basketball or even economic development. The ancillary events surrounding the tournament that crowns champions from 12 Historically Black Colleges and Universities is a career expo, a party, a reunion, a cultural exploration, an experience. At the helm of the conference is someone who has seen her own success on the court and off — Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams. When she was hired nine years ago, she was the first Black women to lead a major collegiate conference. Today, she is one of four, progress that she says is not satisfying enough.

[article_sidebar]Before joining the CIAA, McWilliams spent nearly a decade at the NCAA managing NCAA championships, including both the men’s and women’s Division I Basketball tournaments. As a student, she was also a two-sport athlete at Hampton and was a member of the Hampton University 1988 NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Championship team, freshmen player of the year in 1988 and player of the year for CIAA volleyball in 1990.

With that vast background, McWilliams knows what it takes to produce a successful tournament. With the 2022 tournament set for February 22–24 at Royal Farms Arena, she and the CIAA have high hopes for the event's new home. In this conversation with SportsTravel Managing Editor Matt Traub, McWilliams discusses the move of the event from Charlotte, what has made the tournament such a tourism draw, the progress in DEI efforts at the highest end of collegiate sports and the future of college athletics.

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The Sports and Fitness Industry Association has made it official in its latest trends report: pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the country. Over the past two years, participation is up 39 percent, including an increase of more than 20 percent from 2019 to 2020 when the pandemic helped drive the sport’s appeal. Leading the charge on the sport’s growth is USA Pickleball, which boasts 50,000 members and a robust events series that is also gaining momentum. Stu Upson, a veteran of the sports-events industry has been CEO since December 2020 and is leading the organization into the future with new sponsorship deals, broadcast deals for its largest events and a steady hand as the sport navigates questions of a gap in venues and a rapid rise of manufacturers and others wanting in on the action. In addition, professional leagues are sprouting, including some that are inking impressive hosting deals in some of the largest sports venues in the country.

In this conversation with SportsTravel Executive Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Upson discusses what has accounted for the sport’s growth in popularity, when venues will catch up with demand, what the event landscape looks like and what the biggest threats may be to the continued power of pickleball to gain new followers and fans.

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Skiing and snowboarding have always been among the spotlight sports at the Olympic Winter Games and the 2022 Games in Beijing will be no different with MikaelaShiffrin and ChloeKim being among the biggest names for Team USA. But getting to Beijing and passing strict COVID protocols has been a hot topic in the Olympic world, among many others as China hosts another major sporting event. Named as the president and chief executive officer for U.S. Ski and Snowboard in September, SophieGoldschmidt joined the national governing body off a stint as CEO of the World Surf League, with international experience ranging from the NBA to the WTA Tour and the Rugby Football Union.

Goldschmidt joined SportsTravel Senior Editor MattTraub recently for a conversation about the logistical hurdles that athletes will face to get to Beijing, health and safety protocols the organization has implemented this winter ahead of the Olympics, being the first female president and CEO of the national governing body, balancing the needs of high-performance athletes and growing the sport at the grassroots level, and more.

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The Ironman Group has been a leader in mass participation events for years. The company’s portfolio now extends well beyond the Ironman triathlon series itself and includes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, the multi-day road cycling event series Haute Route and a strategic partnership with UTMB Group, which organizes ultra-trail running events. The company has also been expanding its virtual events during the pandemic and recently acquired the indoor virtual cycling app, FulGaz, to further push into the ever-growing world of connected fitness.

After Ironman's in-person races dropped off the calendar at the start of the pandemic in 2020, they began coming back in 2021 and expectations are high for the 2022 calendar. In this conversation between Ironman Group CEO Andrew Messick and SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Messick discusses how the race series brought back its events, the outlook for the coming year and how the organization uses its own proprietary CRM system to help determine future host cities. We also discuss some of the Ironman series' latest new host cities, including locations in Alaska and Oregon — firsts for the series. And we explore some of the biggest opportunities ahead in the world of mass participation events from one of the leaders in the space.

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Indianapolis has hosted eight NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Fours and is known as one of the best college sports cities in the country. On Monday, January 10, it will for the first time host the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, becoming the first cold-weather city to host the event and the first city that does not have a regular bowl game to host the CFP. SusanBaughman has extensive experience in making big events special in Indianapolis as the senior vice president of the Indiana Sports Corp for more than two decades before taking the role as president for the CFP’s local host committee in Indianapolis. SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talked with Baughman about planning for the CFP title game, what goes into the local leadup for such an event, how the CFP differs from the NCAA’s Final Four and much more.

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As chief operating officer of Chicago Event Management, which organizes the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Mike Nishi has been the logistics lead for the race since 1990. What started out with 6,000 runners has grown to the one of the largest marathons in the world. In 2019, more than 45,000 people finished the race. After the 2020 race was forced to go virtual, the 2021 race on October 10 proved to be one of the most challenging in the event’s history as COVID regulations forced event organizers to operate differently than they had in the past. In doing so, the Chicago Marathon became the first of the six Abbott World Marathon Majors to be run in person since the pandemic began. In this episode, learn what it took to produce the race, how organizers handled COVID protocols, how organizers communicated with participants and what major takeaways Nishi has for event organizers and host cities staging their own events in a post-COVID world.

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Danny Martin has known esports for years even before the industry was calling itself esports. In college, he was the one who would fix video game consoles for his classmates when things broke down. That led to him organizing what were essentially esports tournaments from his dorm room or apartment, allowing him to assess all ends of what would be soon become an industry in itself. Martin sees the long-term play now for the esports industry in developing not only elite athletes that can play in the professional leagues, but all the behind-the-scenes professionals that make live events possible: broadcasters, videographers, graphic designers, coders, event organizers and more. Through his company, Esposure, he has built a technology platform and lab where each of these aspects of the industry can live under one roof.

Esposure is a company based near Dallas that offers a curriculum designed for high school students wanting to dive into all these different specialities. And now they can do it in an actual venue, where events can be staged for competition and students can get hands-on experience learning the tricks of the trade. It’s a concept that can extend to other communities and it has Martin in touch with mayors, school boards and other civic leaders interested in learning more about the concept as a way to develop a whole new talent pipeline. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we talk with Martin about his roots in esports, the development of his company and why destinations should be thinking about the youngest generations now as they are poised to become the future of the industry.

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Nashville Superspeedway reopened in June 2021 and was on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule for the first time this past season. Leading the track’s renaissance both within the Nashville and NASCAR communities is ErikMoses, a longtime leader in mid-Atlantic sports and entertainment circles with an extensive background in sports tourism as senior vice president at Events DC for more than a decade, He also worked as CEO of the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission and as president of the XFL's DC Defenders. SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talked with Moses during the Sports ETA Annual Symposium about building back Nashville Superspeedway’s reputation, planning a NASCAR weekend in the midst of the ongoing pandemic and the sport’s diversity efforts with Moses being the first Black executive of a track.

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Greg Sankey has been the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference since 2015 and is generally regarded as one of the more powerful people in collegiate athletics, given the SEC’s dominance over college football. But Sankey’s career spans multiple regions and divisions across the NCAA, from working in Central New York as the director of intramural sports at Division III Utica College to the Southland Conference, where he was named commissioner in 1996 before joining the SEC in 2002. Though college athletics has experienced changes throughout the decades, this current period may rank among the most volatile ever. Between the debate about name, image and likeness, and the NCAA’s future, expansion of the college football playoff and more, Sankey and the SEC are at the center of it all — including the earth-shaking news in college sports this summer when it invited powerhouse programs Oklahoma and Texas to join the SEC, making it a future 16-team superleague. SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talked with Sankey at the Sports ETA Symposium in Birmingham, Alabama, about conference expansion, name image and likeness, the future of the NCAA and much more.

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The San Francisco 49ers were one of the few NFL teams that did not have fans at a single home game last season because of the pandemic, finishing the season with its last two scheduled home games being played in Arizona. This year the 49ers have been able to play to capacity crowds at Levi’s Stadium while also opening a new club space and unveiling an innovative food and beverage program for season-ticket holders. As general manager of the stadium, Jim Mercurio has seen and just about done it all for the 49ers in his three decades with the organization, dating to the days of Candlestick Park and now the past several years at Levi’s Stadium, which has hosted not only the 49ers but a Super Bowl, CFP National Championship Game and WWE WrestleMania among other major events. SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talked with Mercurio about health and safety at Levi’s Stadium this season, making sure event workers are up to speed on the latest protocols, preparing the stadium for an enhanced and updated fan experience, and much more.

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Greg Cruse is no stranger to surfing. He’s been participating in the sport since he was middle school-aged and was on one of the original high school surf teams in Huntington Beach, California, that was part of the genesis of the National Scholastic Surfing Association. He later became active in the administration of the sport for years, reorganizing Surfing America into USA Surfing when the organization earned national governing body in stats in 2017 in the lead up to the Tokyo Games. Surfing was one of several sports to make its Olympics debut in Tokyo but it’s of course not new to the sporting world. The question for surfing, though, like other new entrants to the program such as skateboarding and climbing that have their own unique cultures, is how the sports would adapt to the international requirements that the Olympics demand. The answer is that is adapted very well. Carissa Moore earned gold for the U.S. women, becoming the first athlete to win gold the sport at the Games. And while there were early concerns about the surf itself, it turns out the waves were just fine for competition. Getting to that point however was another challenge entirely, one that involved real estate negotiations for the camp that the U.S. team called home and logistics that included converting a shipping container into a pizza kitchen and even sending a Jacuzzi for Team USA athletes to use once they were in Japan. In this conversation, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Cruse about how all of those logistics went down, how cities can get involved in hosting more events even if they aren’t near an ocean, and how the sport intends to capitalize on its new wave of momentum.

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In only a few months, it will be the 20th anniversary of the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, one of only three destinations in the United States to have hosted the Winter Games. The 2002 Games was Utah’s introduction to the world and was held under high security with 9/11 having happened less than six months before the Opening Ceremony. The Games ended up turning a huge profit that led to the creation of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, which continues to this day, and every venue that was used in the 2002 Games remains operational. With that in mind, Salt Lake City will be bidding to host the Olympics again, either in 2030 or 2034. In this episode, SportsTravelSenior Editor MattTraub sat down with FraserBullock, the chief operating officer for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City and current president and chief executive officer of the Salt Lake City–Utah Committee for The Games that is bidding again to discuss the legacy of the 2002 event and Bullock's hopes for a future Games.

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USA Rugby has gone through a lot during the past year-plus. Not only was it dramatically affected by the pandemic like every other national governing body in the Olympic movement, it had to file for bankruptcy protection last year. Having come through the process with a streamlined operation, USA Rugby now looks ahead to the Olympic Summer Games, where it has men’s and women’s rugby sevens teams competing in Tokyo. USA Rugby has also announced it will move forward with proposals to host either the 2027 or 2031 men’s World Cup, along with the 2029 women’s World Cup. SportsTravel Senior Editor MattTraub talked with USA Rugby’s Chief Executive Officer RossYoung, about the state of rugby throughout the United States, the planning process toward bidding for a World Cup and more.

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There have been many books written about sports. But not many books have focused on the fans themselves. In his new book “Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Understanding,” author Larry Olmsted details scientific studies that are proving the benefits of following sports not just on the health of the fans themselves, but on the communities that host those events. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz sits down with Olmsted to discuss the findings of these recent studies, learn why it is that sports fans in general are more happy, and what destinations and venues can take away to make the case for why the events they host are so important to the health of the community at large.

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Cal Ripken, Jr. is baseball's all-time Iron Man. He retired from the game in 2001 after a career that spanned 21 seasons. While he's best known for his incredible streak of 2,632 consecutive games played, he also redefined the position of shortstop before being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007. In his post-playing career, one of his passions has been growing Ripken Baseball, a youth baseball organization that manages a group of sports complexes in Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee, hosting a series of Ripken Experience events. Ripken Baseball will bring its Ripken Experience tournament play to The Legends Showdown in Round Rock, Texas, in partnership with Ryan Sanders Sports & Entertainment. Charged with leading Ripken Baseball’s growth is MikeKenney, a seasoned industry professional with experience with the Harlem Globetrotters and Comcast Spectator. SportsTravel Senior Editor MattTraub talked with Cal and Mike recently about expanding the Ripken brand into Texas, how Ripken Baseball has dealt with the past year-plus during the pandemic and stay true to its organizational mission, trends for youth baseball participation, Cal's thoughts on the state of Major League Baseball and much more.

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Scott O’Neil spent eight years working as the chief executive officer at Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, best known as the owners of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils. Under O’Neil’s leadership, HBSE grew into a sports and entertainment franchise that spans two professional teams, an esports business, the owner and operator of the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, along with the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex, the Sixers Innovation Lab and becoming one of the partners in Elevate Sports Ventures, a sports and entertainment agency. After nearly a decade of growth and innovation and almost more awards than one could list, O’Neil also released his first book, "Be Where Your Feet Are," in June. Those successes made it all the more surprising when at the end of June, O’Neil announced that he would be leaving HBSE. Two days after that announcement was made, he joined SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub on the SportsTravel Podcast to discuss what went into the decision, his new book and more about the sports industry.

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Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving

Jimmy Johnson coached the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories and the University of Miami to a national championship. In August, he’ll be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But he knows more than football. His pro fishing tournaments have become some of the biggest purses in the sport and are now expanding to new locations. This year, the Jimmy Johnson Quest for the Ring fishing tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey, will mark the first of his events to be held outside the state of Florida. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Johnson discusses his love of both fishing and football. We also discuss some of the issues facing the league today and his upcoming induction into the Hall of Fame. Also, learn what it’s really like behind the scenes each week on “Fox NFL Sunday.”

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The 2022 PGA Championship was scheduled to be held at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, before the PGA of America in January announced that it would move the event instead to Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the 2021 Senior PGA Championship was recently completed. The PGA Championship then received a giant burst of attention when this year’s event at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, was shockingly won by PhilMickelson, making him the oldest player to win a major in golf history. It comes right as the PGA of America is about to make tickets for the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club available exclusively online through a registration process for the first major to be played at Southern Hills since 2007. In this episode, SportsTravel Senior Editor MattTraub talks with BryanKarns, championship director for next year’s PGA, about what goes into the planning for a major championship, the similarities and differences between the PGA and Senior PGA that was recently completed at Southern Hills and much more.

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Helen Maroulis became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling when she won in Rio in 2016. Not only did she break new ground for women’s wrestling in the United States, it was the magnitude of victory that also impressed. To earn the gold, she beat the most dominant wrestler of all time, three-time Olympic gold medalist and thirteen-time World champion Saori Yoshida of Japan. Her career seemed full of possibilities, but a concussion suffered during a competition two years later put everything on hold. Eventually, with considerable outside help, she fought her way back. And at the recent Olympic Wrestling Trials in Fort Worth, she earned her way back on to the team headed to Tokyo, winning in a dramatic match over Jenna Burkert. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we talk about Maroulis’ start in wrestling, the journey to the Olympic Games, her epic comeback from her concussion and the victory at the Trials. Special thanks to one of Helen’s sponsors, Procter & Gamble, for their help arranging this conversation.

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Allyson Felix is an Olympic legend. In June, she will compete at the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials for a spot in what would be her fifth Olympic Summer Games. In her previous four (2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016), she has earned six gold medals and three silver medals, making her one of the most decorated track stars of all time. She also has 18 world championship medals to her name, — a record for men or women — including 13 golds, the most recent of which came in 2019 in the 4x400m and the 4x400m mixed relay. But this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, held during a global pandemic, will be unlike any for which she’s prepared. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, hear how Felix is preparing for the competition, her thoughts on Eugene, Oregon, as a track destination and as host of the upcoming World Championships, what cities she’s enjoyed competing in the most ,and what the best events do well when it comes to taking care of athletes.

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Tim Schneider, the chairman of the Sports Division at Northstar Meetings Group, is the founder of SportsTravel magazine, the TEAMS Conference and Expo and the EsportsTravel Summit. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we talk with Schneider about the origins of SportsTravel and the sports-event industry itself, the growth of sectors such as esports and the role that sports-related travel will play in the nation’s economic recovery. It’s a wide ranging conversation that holds many lessons that still apply today for professionals who are involved in the organizing and hosting of sports events at all levels.

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Melissa Stockwell's road to the Paralympics began in Iraq in 2004 when a roadside bomb took her leg, making her the first female American solider in history to lose a limb in active combat. After earning a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for her service, she turned her attention to the Paralympics, becoming the first Iraq War veteran to qualify for the Paralympic Games. She competed in swimming at the Beijing Games in 2008, coming away without a medal but being selected to serve as the Team USA flag bearer at the Closing Ceremony. She then switched to paratriathlon, where she really found her calling. In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, she won a bronze medal, part of a U.S. sweep of the podium. Now she is training for the Tokyo Games in hopes of besting that performance. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Stockwell discusses her journey to the Paralympics, how to prepare for a Games that will be unlike any other and how she is encouraging youth adaptive sport athletes to give triathlon a try through her Dare2Tri nonprofit. Special thanks for Stockwell’s sponsor, Proctor & Gamble, for helping to arrange this episode.

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The WNBA bills itself as a league that features the most accomplished and highly skilled women in the world of basketball who are passionate about the game they love. One of the biggest names in the league is Elena Delle Donne, who in seven years has racked up one of the longest track records of success in the league’s recent history. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub talks with Delle Donne about preparing for this season after offseason back surgery, being vocal on social issues that matter to her and the WNBA, balancing her community and charity work with playing basketball at the highest levels, her Olympic memories of Rio and preparing for this year’s Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo, her new YouTube series and much more. Special thanks to one of Elena’s sponsors, Proctor & Gamble, for helping to arrange this conversation.

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Leigh Steinberg is the original sports super agent, the inspiration for the movie “Jerry Maguire” and the representative for current NFL star Patrick Mahomes. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Steinberg about his career as an agent and his epic comeback after years out of the business. We also get Steinberg’s unique take on some of the NFL’s biggest events from an agent’s perspective, including the NFL Draft, the Super Bowl and the NFL Combine. He’s also an event organizer himself, hosting one of the biggest ancillary events around the Super Bowl, one that will return next year in his hometown of Los Angeles for Super Bowl LVI.

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The Professional Fighters League 2021 season will be held in a bubble environment at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with former world champions Fabricio Werdum, Anthony Pettis and Clarissa Shields all participating in the PFL for the first time this season, in addition to returning champions Kayla Harrison, Lance Palmerand Nathan Schulte looking to defend their crowns. In this conversation with SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub, Dan Ghosh-Roy, chief digital officer of the Professional Fighters League, previews the PFL’s season, what went into the choice of Atlantic City as the choice for the league's bubble and much more about what sports organizations can and should be doing when it comes to promoting themselves on social media platforms while embracing technology.

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Dale Murphy is a legendary Major League Baseball player who won two National League Most Valuable Player and five Gold Glove awards and appeared in seven All-Star Games during a career largely spent with the Atlanta Braves, but that also included stops with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Colorado Rockies. Today he is executive vice president of sports for LiveView Technlogies, which provides portable security cameras that add to an event or venue’s security plans.

In this episode, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz talks with Murphy about his career in baseball, his thoughts on getting a younger generation interested in the sport and his new role in the sports-events industry.

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HotelPlanner has been around for 17 years helping organizations book group travel. Bruce Rosenberg, the company’s president of the Americas and chief operating officer, has been part of that leadership team since 2012 after a career in hospitality that included 13 years with Hilton Hotels. As the travel industry has tried to get back on its feet after a devastating 2020, one area that already is standing out is sports-related travel. Especially at the amateur level, destinations and hotels are seeing steady business in group hotel stays from traveling teams and the expectation in 2021 is that sports will continue to be a bright spot for the industry.

HotelPlanner is certainly banking on that business. In recent weeks, the company has signed partnerships at the professional level with Harris Blitzer, owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, the New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center in Newark, but also with USA Pickleball, the USL soccer league and a promotional deal with American tennis player John Isner, all of which are based on the notion that fans of those sports will soon be returning to travel if they haven’t already. And their work isn’t just limited to traditional sports. A recent deal with Immortals Gaming Club shows evidence that HotelPlanner sees a bright future in esports-related travel as well. In this episode with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, learn why Rosenberg and HotelPlanner are so bullish on the role sports-related travel will play in the industry’s recovery.

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The 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing season is set to kick off March 11 in Gainesville, Florida, a 23-race schedule culminating with the season-finale near Los Angeles in November. NHRA drivers are among the fastest in the world, navigating their 11,000-horsepower Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars down the track at speeds that exceed 330 miles per hour. Every ticket is a Pit Pass, allowing fans to walk through the pits and enjoy an up-close look at the cars in between rounds of racing. Fans also can walk right up to their favorite drivers to pose for a picture and get an autograph, while children 12 and under can get in for free. In this conversation with SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub, three-time series champ AntronBrown and eight-time national event winner LeahPruett discuss the NHRA’s devoted fan base, how they got started in auto racing and what stands out for them when they travel across the country.

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Women’s basketball is one of the biggest growth markets in the sports event industry. The NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament has been one of the best showcases for women’s sports each year and this March’s event will be no different. Held in a controlled environment in San Antonio, the tournament — in addition to broadcasts on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU — will have at least six nationally broadcast games on ABC starting with the opening day of action on Sunday, March 21, guaranteeing an audience for every one of its 63 games leading to the championship on April 4. In this conversation with SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub, NCAA Vice President of Women's Basketball Lynn Holzman and Jenny Carnes, San Antonio Sports senior vice president and chief operating officer, discuss everything that is going into the planning for this year’s tournament from the viewpoint of both the tournament organizers and the host destination, and what they’re looking forward to the most about the event.

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The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament is one of the biggest events on the sports calendar each year. But last March, as college basketball conferences were about to start their postseason tournaments, the coronavirus began to sweep throughout the United States and forced the cancellation of the 2020 event. This year the tournament will be held in a controlled environment centralized in Indianapolis with a majority of the games at four venues throughout the city along with early-round action hosted at Purdue University and Indiana University. In this conversation with SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub, NCAA Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt discusses the tournament’s organization with a focus on health and safety, what went into the original November announcement that the event would be held in a controlled environment, the shifting landscape upon which this season has been held and what aspects of this year's event the NCAA may be able to use going forward at future tournaments.

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Amanda Kraus took over as CEO of USRowing in November 2020, leading the national governing body at a time of challenges across the sports-event industry. But her background is expected to help her on a number of fronts, including adding much needed diversity to the ranks of participants and the chance to fundraise for any number of projects. Before taking the helm, Kraus founded and led the nonprofit Row New York, which provided opportunities to row for those who previously didn’t have access to the sport. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Kraus outlines her goals for the organization, her interest in USRowing, the balance between supporting the national teams and growing membership, and the outlook for the Olympic Games and the NGB’s events in 2021.

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Since its founding in 2016, Super League Triathlon has been working to innovate the sport. Shorter distances, new formats, incentives for athletes to win each leg, a new indoor concept — all of these have been on the league’s radar. And while the league’s events have largely been held overseas, the organization is looking at the United States to expand its events. In November, co-founder Michael D’hulst announced that the company had acquired the Malibu Triathlon in California. And before the pandemic hit, Super League Triathlon had plans to stage its first U.S. race in Tempe, Arizona. In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, D’hulst describes the league’s approach to triathlon, what his interest is in races in the United States and what the outlook for the industry holds in 2021 after the most challenging year on record.

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Florida has been the center of nearly every major sports event in the past year. That has included serving as home to the bubble setups for the NBA and Major League Soccer in Orlando and as home to the College Football Playoff in Miami. But Tampa Bay has seen some of the most significant action when it comes to its professional sports teams. The area is home of the current Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning as well as the home of the American League champions Tampa Bay Rays and the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers. And now it will be home to one of the biggest events of all — the Super Bowl. In this podcast with SportsTravel Senior Editor Matt Traub, we chat with Rob Higgins, the executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission and president and chief executive officer for the Tampa Bay Host Committee for Super Bowl LV, which is scheduled to kick off on February 7 at Raymond James Stadium. Higgins discusses what's on tap in the region around the game, what the past year has been like and how he and his team have kept their optimism in the face of challenging circumstances.

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All evidence has suggested that esports have gained fans during the pandemic as people who have been home have discovered new forms of sports and entertainment. But will those fans travel to events when they return? New research suggests that not only will they travel, but they’ll spend money when they get there. In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, we chat with Nicole Pike, the global sector head of esports and gaming for YouGov, one of the leading international research firms. Data from the company provide some encouraging statistics and trends for destinations, venues and event organizers as they plan for a post-pandemic future of live esports events.

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Nick Carparelli was named executive director of the Football Bowl Association in December 2019, which in retrospect is a fascinating time to begin a job overseeing the college football bowl structure. One of his first goals was to launch an effort to rebrand the trade association whose members include the more than 40 bowl games that make up the postseason at college football’s highest level. That effort recently paid off with the announcement that the association would be renamed and rebranded as Bowl Season, along with a new logo that reflects the 10 conferences whose schools play in the games. But what will bowl season look like this year? In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Carparelli discusses what to expect from the bowl games that will be played this season and what the future holds for the postseason spectacles.

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David Baker took over as president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014 after a career that included his serving as the elected mayor of Irvine California and 12 years as commissioner of the Arena Football League. During his time at the hall of fame, he has since led the museum into new territory on a number of fronts. The Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village project on and around the grounds is an ambitious effort to add a center of excellence office building with research and development components, a premium hotel, a waterpark, a convention venue and a retail promenade to the famed grounds in Canton. The first phase of that project, Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium has already been completed, as has a complex of fields that have attracted youth tournaments and other events. The next phase recently broke ground as well.

But 2020, of course, has not been without its challenges. The August enshrinement ceremony had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and along with that came the loss of the preseason NFL game from Tom Benson stadium that has been one of the hall’s highest-profile events. With two enshrinement ceremonies now planned for next year, Baker has suggested the hall will have twice the fun in ’21. But how exactly do they plan to pull that off? We’ll explore that and more in this episode with host Jason Gewirtz, the editor and publisher of SportsTravel, including what it’s like for Baker to be the one who tells former players they’ve just been inducted and how the tradition began of his knocking on their hotel room door to tell them the news.

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For years, the Sports Events and Tourism Association (formerly the National Association of Sports Commissions) produced an annual state of the industry report in an effort to gauge the economic impact of the sports tourism industry. But association leaders were quick to note that the survey, while producing interesting results, was only as good as the number of member organizations willing to participate. Earlier this year, and before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the association set out to do something more ambitious with its research. Combining data from Tourism Economics, Longwoods International and U.S. government research, as well as valuable information culled from its members, Sports ETA, with the support of the Northstar Meetings Group, commissioned what is believed to be the most comprehensive research ever conducted about the sports tourism and sports-related travel industries. The end result: In 2019, sports-related travel accounted for more than $45 billion in direct spending, generating an estimated 69 million room nights across amateur sports and collegiate championship events.

In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, the president and CEO of Sports ETA, Al Kidd, and Jennifer Stoll, the lead researcher on the project, discuss the data in the new survey and how destinations and event organizers can take advantage of the numbers that will serve as a benchmark as the industry continues its recovery.

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World TeamTennis has been around for years and has certainly has had to adapt over that time. But the recently completed 45th season was the most unusual one yet. Instead of playing matches in the league's nine home markets, the league co-founded by Billie Jean King played the entire season at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The end result was a July 12–August 1 tournament that featured the highest television ratings in league history. In this podcast with World TeamTennis CEO Carlos Silva, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz discusses how the league landed on the resort as host, how it approached testing of its players and how it was able to allow spectators in the stands — a rarity in the pandemic era of professional sports.

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Few commissioners of professional sports have had to undergo the immediate challenges that faced Lisa Baird when she took over the National Women’s Soccer League. While her professional background included a decade as chief marketing officer of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and a similar role before that at the National Football League, not much can prepare a leader for a worldwide pandemic. Just two days after Baird began her role on March 10, the league shut down its 2020 season and began crafting a return-to-pay strategy. That process ended up serving as the NWSL Challenge Cup, which concluded July 26 after a monthlong tournament in the Salt Lake City area. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Baird discusses how the league managed to keep its players virus-free after an initial scare that kept the league’s Orlando team at home, lessons learned from the experience and how the NWSL was able to become the first professional league that returned to play after the pandemic began. We also discuss the league’s expansion plans in Louisville, Kentucky, and Los Angeles, and the importance of Tokyo being able to stage the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in 2021.

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Lacrosse has been one of the few sports seeing steadily increased participation growth in recent years. But the coronavirus pandemic has had an outsized impact on US Lacrosse, the sport’s national governing body, as it has for many organizations. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, longtime president and CEO Steve Stenersen discusses how the NGB has adjusted, why it’s taken a relatively cautious approach to return-to-play and the inherent pressures in getting kids back on the field of play, especially at privately run tournaments. We also delve into issues of systemic racism in the sport and how the NGB is approaching the issue, the sport’s chances in its push for the Olympic program and the status of the organization’s next LaxCon event and the Women’s World Championships scheduled for Maryland in 2021.

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Minneapolis has found itself at the center of attention in a national and now global discussion on issues of systemic racism and police reform in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz sits down with Melvin Tennant, the president and CEO of Meet Minneapolis and the executive director of Sports Minneapolis. We have a frank dialogue about how Floyd's death has been felt in Minneapolis, ways that systemic racism has been reflected in the travel and hospitality community, suggestions for better hiring practices within the industry and how sports can help lead the way in recovery not just on this issue but on the many economic issues facing destinations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

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For decades, two organizations had their hands in the majority of adaptive sports opportunities in the United States: Disabled Sports USA and Adaptive Sports USA. In May, those groups announced a merger to become a new organization called Move United, a major development in the adaptive sports space the beginning of what could produce a centralized effort to advance the cause of recreation and competitive sports for people with disabilities nationwide. And with the 2028 Paralympic Summer Games on the horizon in Los Angeles, interest in adaptive sports programs are expected to rise. In this episode, SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz sits down with Glenn Merry, CEO of Move United and the former CEO of Disabled Sports USA, to discuss the merger, the rebrand, plans for more competitive events in more cities around the country, a new professional wheelchair football league and the opportunities ahead before the Games in Los Angeles. The discussion also goes into what cities and venues can do to tap into the network of organizations serving adaptive sports athletes in their communities.

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Coming off a 2019 NFL Draft that attracted an estimated 600,000 people over three days in Nashville, the professional football league felt confident the 2020 Draft in Las Vegas would be its largest one yet. And then the coronavirus pandemic sent everything in the other direction. No crowds on the Las Vegas Strip. No prospects pulling up in boats along the Bellagio fountains. Instead—four weeks before its start—the event turned virtual, with Commissioner Roger Goodell’s basement serving as the improbable focal point.

How the league shifted from a live event for hundreds of thousands to a remote event with hundreds if not thousands of questions to sort out is a remarkable tale. And in the middle of the decision was Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president for club business and league events, who oversaw the shift. In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, O’Reilly spells out the challenges the league faced in pulling off an event that was viewed on television and online by more than 55 million people—which turned out to be a record of its own.

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The halt to sports has had a big impact on the youth market, just as it has at the collegiate and professional levels. Hear from the developers and managers of some of the largest multisport complexes in the United States on what the impact has been so far, what needs to happen next to get events back in business and why they are optimistic that youth sports can help lead the way back for the economies of many destinations.

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Live sports events may be on hold but that doesn’t mean sports salespeople should automatically hit the pause button. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, industry veteran Molly Arbogast, the president and CEO of POV Sports Marketing, outlines what venues, NGBs, sports organizations and brands should be doing now that the sports landscape has shifted. And she discusses what they should be thinking about when it comes to sponsorship even before live events open back up to the public.

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While the entire sports-event industry has attempted to navigate the recent weeks of the coronavirus pandemic and plan for some difficult weeks ahead, Running USA has been helping its members work their way through the very difficult decisions about whether their events should be canceled or rescheduled. In this episode, Running USA CEO Rich Harshbarger talks with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz about why those decisions are so challenging, the choices race directors have when it comes to their events and trends in running participation overall.

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Matt Farrell has one of the most interesting jobs in sports and certainly in the golf industry. As executive director of World Long Drive, Farrell not only oversees the tour and its lively events, he also has the intriguing title of general manager of alternative golf at the Golf Channel, which owns and operates the tour. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Farrell discusses the concept of alternative golf, how the tour has been dealing with the event cancelations that are affecting the entire sports-event industry, how World Long Drive settles on its venues, and how some of the hottest issues in sports—drug testing, esports and sports betting—are playing a part in his competitions as well.

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Colie Edison may not have the traditional background for the leader of one of North America’s professional sports leagues. Early in her career she appeared on MTV’s “The Real World,” but was able to take that background in entertainment and marketing and carve a path for herself into the real world of bowling. Bowling has seen considerable consolidation in recent years with Bowlero Corp. now operating more than 300 recreational bowling centers around the country, including those that used to be under the AMF and Brunswick brands. Last year, the company made more headlines by purchasing the PBA Tour. Edison, who had been Bowleros’ chief customer officer, was named CEO of the league. Now the company has plans to take advantage of a rare synergy in sports—owning a large part of bowling’s recreational side as well as the professional side. And a new television contract with Fox, after years with ABC and ESPN, has the tour’s events on live television more than in generations. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Edison discusses why the company was interested in the pro league, how it intends to combine the different sides of the sport, the changing demographics of the casual bowler, what the tour looks for in host venues and how it plans to bring athletes from other sports into the mix to help promote its future events.

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Technology in sports is everywhere, from the ticket you purchase for an event to your experience at the venue. And for amateur sports organizations in particular, technology is changing the way their participants register for events and experience those events in the months leading up to the game—or even when they are on site waiting for their next match. As the founder and CEO of EventConnect, Jason Parker is leading the effort to modernize the process of event registration. And in the process, the veteran of sports hospitality and experiences is changing the way event organizers should approach the use of technology to make their own lives easier and to help people signing up for their events. In this discussion with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Parker discusses the trends he is seeing in technology as it relates to sports events, how his own background paved the way for his current company and why event organizers should be embracing new tech at every turn they can.

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In sports, sometimes it’s ideal for teams to peak at the right time. And USA Weightlifting would appear to be doing just that, especially when it comes to its elite athletes. The U.S. team is coming off its best showing in nearly 30 years at the IWF World Championships and its best showing in 20 years at the Pan Am Games. And the team appears poised to medal again in Tokyo after ending a 16-year drought at the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio. Off the field of competition, things are headed in the right direction as well under the leadership of Phil Andrews, who has been CEO since 2016 and has been with the organization since 2013. A fundraising campaign ahead of Tokyo is on pace to raise $500,000 that will help pay for a unique training center for U.S. athletes at the Games. And several U.S. cities have been able to host international events thanks in part to USA Weightlifting’s concerted push to be more involved internationally. The sport of weightlifting has its challenges, including those outlined in a recent documentary that alleged new doping violations of overseas athletes and raised governance questions about the international federation. But Andrews is helping to lead the sport into a new era.

In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Andrews discusses his entry into the Olympic movement, the NGB’s unique plans for Tokyo, why food costs need to be packaged into the NGB’s event room rates and what makes an ideal host venue for the organization.

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At some point, something at your sports event is likely to go wrong. How you prepare for and respond to that inevitability will determine how your event is experienced and perceived by participants and spectators alike. For nearly 10 years, Frank Supovitz was senior vice president of events for the National Football League, responsible for all the league’s events including the Super Bowl. In that capacity, he saw all numbers of scenarios, including the unexpected blackout during the 2013 game in New Orleans. In a new book, “What to Do When Things Go Wrong,” Supovitz has put together a game plan for organizers and meeting planners of all kinds based on his own experiences, which also included 13 years organizing events for the National Hockey League. In this podcast, Supovitz discusses how event organizers can plan for the unexpected, how the NFL responded to some of its most challenging moments and how some of the league’s events have grown considerably over the years.

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The Denver-based U.S. Center for SafeSport was created in 2017 by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to tackle one of the most difficult issues in sports: the safety of the athletes competing. The scandal at USA Gymnastics has underscored just how serious the problems of sexual abuse and other forms of abuse have become for athletes competing in the Olympic and Paralympic movement. The statistics are staggering. While the center initially received about 40 complaints a month when it opened, it now receives nearly 240 a month, with an open caseload of more than 1,000 allegations needing investigation. In July, Ju’Riese Colónwas named the center’s new CEO, joining the organization after serving as the vice president of child and club safety at the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and previously serving as executive director of prevention and outreach for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her challenges with the U.S. Center for SafeSport include keeping up with the growing caseload and navigating the delicate politics over which organizations should be funding the center’s work and how. In this podcast, Colóndiscusses why she took on the job, how the center is prioritizing its work and what host cities and the sports-event industry should be considering and doing when it comes to protecting the athletes competing at events.

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Obstacle course races were once considered a fad in the sports-event industry. But some organizations have withstood the test of time, including Tough Mudder, one of the first companies in the space. Still, their journey hasn’t come without growing pains. Recent forays to diversify the business and tweak their traditional events had left some hardcore fans disappointed. Now, however, the organization is turning around their participation rates and event calendar by going back to their roots. And leading the charge is Kyle McLaughlin, who has skyrocketed up the leadership since joining in May 2018 with a background in event production from New York Road Runners, the organizers of the New York City Marathon. After serving as senior vice president of live events and later president of Tough Mudder, McLaughlin was named CEO in July. In this podcast with SportsTravel’s Jason Gewirtz, McLaughlin discusses where the organization has been, what markets are ripe for expansion and how Tough Mudder has survived where others have not.

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There was a time when simply enjoying the competition of a live sporting event was enough to keep spectators engaged. In recent years, that has become even more challenging for sports organizations and venues alike. Fans expect more today from the experience than they did in years past. And companies like Xperiel are leading the new wave of spectator engagement, creating predictive games for fans in the arena and stadium and using augmented reality to help them play their own games within a game using the venue’s scoreboard. Those are just two examples and they’re already in place at NBA arenas and NFL stadiums. In this episode of the SportsTravel Podcast, Xperiel Co-Founder and CEO Alex Hertel explains how his company is changing the landscape for fans, what the future holds for the live-event experience and how you can catch a virtual T-shirt shot from a virtual cannon on the scoreboard—and get a real shirt delivered to you for your accomplishment.

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When you think of the fastest-growing sports by participation, you might be surprised by which activities are gaining the most traction. According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, the sport seeing one of the biggest increases over the past three years has been BMX, up nearly 9 percent in participation over that time. That's no surprise to USA BMX, the national governing body for the sport, which has seen not only participation grow, but also the number of venues that cities are investing in to attract the sport and its largest events. And there are plenty of events. USA BMX sanctions more than 12,000 races a year and organizes its own national event series that has had cities reaching out to get a piece of the action. The world is taking notice as well. In 2020, Houston will host the UCI BMX World Championships at a new venue about to open. One of the key leaders in all of that growth and development has been John David, the chief operating officer of USA BMX and a longtime board member of the National Association of Sports Commissions, now known as the Sports Events & Tourism Association. In this podcast with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, David explains how the NGB has partnered with the sports tourism industry to grow its events, how the governing body has changed its approach to entry-level participants, the organization's upcoming move from Arizona to Oklahoma and how USA BMX engages with cities that may not even have a track.

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When you think of Topgolf, you’re likely not thinking about esports. But the entertainment company whose high-end driving ranges have become a phenomenon of sorts continues to branch out into new areas. The latest of those is the creation of Esports Lounges at six of their properties in an effort to attract a new audience to their venues and to plant a flag in the growing esports market. In this conversation with SportsTravel Editor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Topgolf Media President YuChiang Cheng discusses Topgolf’s interest in esports, the company’s target audience for events and his own background in gaming and sports.

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Every four years, soccer gets a huge profile boost through the FIFA World Cup. With the Women’s World Cup set for France in 2019, soccer leaders in the United States are hopeful that the defending champion U.S. Women’s National Team will once again make a deep run and keep interest high when the event is done. Such a run should only stand to benefit the National Women’s Soccer League, which is entering its record-breaking seventh season as the only professional soccer league for women in the country. In this podcast, NWSL President Amanda Duffy discusses her rise in the organization, how the league intends to capitalize on World Cup fever and her predictions for who will hoist the trophy in France.

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With more than 50,000 runners, the TCS New York City Marathon is the largest marathon in the world. But New York Road Runners, which organizes the event, does more than stage a single race across the city. It organizes more than 50 events annually, including two large half marathons, and is about to launch a new 5K in New Jersey. Leading the charge is Michael Capiraso, who has been president and CEO since 2015. Capiraso has also been a staunch advocate for NYRR’s programs in area schools and has supported programs such as virtual racing that allow participants to run one of the organization’s races from anywhere in the world. In this podcast with SportsTravelEditor and Publisher Jason Gewirtz, Capiraso discusses the logistics of organizing the New York City Marathon, what event organizers at all levels can take away from what NYRR has learned over the years and how he’s somehow been able to run 27 consecutive marathons while he’s been organizing them at the same time.

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Oliver Luck has had many roles over his career in sports, both as an athlete and an executive. But his latest position as commissioner of the revamped XFL professional football league may be his most challenging yet. Hear about the innovations Luck plans to bring to the sport, how the XFL picked its eight host cities and why the XFL isn't the only new league trying to capitalize on the unending interest in football.

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