SportsEvents Magazine

JUL 2012

SportsEvents is edited for those who plan tournaments or other sports events.

Issue link: https://sportsevents.epubxp.com/i/76164

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 18 of 60

Home DIFFERENCE Maker Q Subscribe Contact S.P.O.R.T.S. 2012 How did you make the transition from baseball to tourism? Promoting a destination and promoting a sports team is not that different. Working for the CVB, I promote Casper and try to convince people to spend the night, spend their money and have a great time. You do the same thing in sports. You encourage people to come to the ballpark, buy a hat, buy a hot dog and have fun. I realized that what I had done for the teams was destina- tion marketing, but the destination was a lot smaller—it was a ballpark. Q How does Casper stack up as a sports destination to promote? You could say we have the perfect storm here in Casper. We're a great destination smack dab in the middle of the region and right on the interstate. We also have a great airport, almost 2,800 hotel rooms, and we are the cultural center of the state. Casper hosts state high school tourna- ments annually in volleyball, wrestling, basketball, cheer and dance, as well as track and field. We've also hosted high school Nordic skiing and golf. We are the home of the College National Finals Rodeo, which is a weeklong event that "One of the things we do at the end of a game is go out to the front gate and thank people for coming to the park." crowns the national champion of college rodeo and have just signed a 10-year extension with the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. We also just won the bid for the 2013-2015 NJCAA D-1 Volleyball National Championships. Q What prompted you to buy a base- ball team to play in Casper? We have had the Colorado Rockies rookie level-affiliated team in Casper for 11 years, the Casper Ghosts. This winter, the franchise moved to Grand Junction, leav- ing us with this hole. More importantly, it left a lot of local supporters and very com- mitted fans without a local team. I under- stand from a business standpoint that the Rockies felt like it was the right decision to move to Grand Junction, but what about the sponsors, season ticket holders and host families? It broke my heart for these people when the team left. Being a base- ball guy, I love the sport and wanted to come out to the park. I wanted baseball in 2012, and I wasn't alone. I knew of the Mountain Collegiate Baseball League, which has teams in Fort Collins, Cheyenne and Laramie, so I called and talked to a couple of owners in the league. I knew the league wanted a team in Casper, so they really had to sell me on starting a team from scratch, which I had never done. We made a lot of phone calls and sent a lot of e-mails at night. We talked to the city of Casper and told them what we were thinking. I got phenomenal support from Casper, both financially and emotionally. They essentially said, "Let's do it." So, my partners and I went out and got us a base- ball team. Q Has the CVB been supportive of your ownership of the team? Very supportive. We had a board meeting not too long after we started kicking the idea around. I asked them what they thought and told them I had no intention of quitting my job. They decided the team would only help our efforts to promote Casper as a sports destination. They said it was a great idea and have been behind us 100 percent from the beginning. Q What do visitors think about the team? One of the things we do at the end of a game is go out to the front gate and thank people for coming to the park. Last night, I was at the gate after a game and met this man from Canada. He was in town work- ing for two weeks and walked over to the ballpark for a game. He said, "I love base- ball, and it's great to have the option to come to the ballpark at night for a game." He got a hat, a T-shirt and a schedule, and said he couldn't wait to come back. From a tourism perspective, the team represents another attraction in town for us to pro- mote as one more reason to visit Casper. Q With a busy work schedule and now this new team, are you getting any rest? April and I have 2-year-old twins. I don't remember the last time I got a good night's sleep, but we're almost through the first season. I can sleep in August. We weren't willing to stand around and wait and hope that someone else would bring a team to town to replace the Ghosts. I've never been the guy to sit and hope something would happen. I believe in cre- ating your own destiny, and one of my dreams since I was a kid was to own my own baseball team. I thought maybe I'd be in my 50s or 60s, so it was a surprise when I realized I could do this in my 30s. We didn't want to be sitting around 20 or 30 years from now saying we wish we had done this. We just did it. ■ 18 July 2012 www.sportseventsmagazine.com ▼

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of SportsEvents Magazine - JUL 2012