On Friday, July 19, Sports Facilities Advisory (SFA) founder and CEO, Dev Pathik, appeared on CNBC’s ‘The Exchange’ to discuss the continued ‘boom’ in youth sports tourism. Pathik’s firms, Sports Facilities Advisory and Sports Facilities Management lead the nation in planning, developing and operating youth sports tournament venues.
During his interview, Pathik celebrated the contributions of the private sectors role in these new developments and affirmed the need for the public sector to continue contributing through physical education, school sports, and low or no-cost sports through parks and recreation. Most critical to these new developments, according to Pathik, are the innovative funding mechanisms like opportunity zones, tax increment finance districts, and other incentives that help incentivize private investment into the community.
Pathik said in the interview, “Tournaments are driving players into markets that would not otherwise be there. The result [from this drive to communities] is a boom in mixed-use developments and tax increment financing and opportunity-zone incentives for towns to attract large tournament operators [to host their events]. It’s hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the travel segment alone.” Pathik continues the conversation, “Good public private partnerships are rooted in the proven track record of the developer and operator and that they should lead to increased access to sport for lower income families.”
Developments like the $800-million project underway in Hutto, Texas are the result of public private partnerships like the one SFA has established between Perfect Game, the world’s largest baseball scouting organization, a private developer, and the City of Hutto. Following a nation-wide search and competitive RFP process led by SFA, the organization selected the City of Hutto for the relocation and expansion of their national headquarters. The project is the single largest economic development deal for the City and is projected to produce more than $200-million in economic impact through more than 150,000 hotel room nights annually.
SFA and its sister company, SFM, are the premier resource for developing and managing new facilities built by communities poised to take advantage of the boom in the marketplace. SFM operates and manages the largest and fastest-growing group of sports tourism complexes, event owners, and vendors in the nation, known as the SFM Network. To watch the segment on CNBC, click here.
Since 2014, SFM-managed venues have hosted more than 75 million visitors and generated millions of dollars in economic impact. More information is available at sportadvisory.com.
