The College World Series: Omaha's $90 Million Tournament

Today’s Email Is Sponsored By…

Friends,

With the 2020 tournament canceled due to COVID-19, college baseball’s biggest fans have returned to Omaha for the first time in more than 700 days to participate in one of the best atmospheres in all of baseball — The College World Series.

How it works: After 64 participating teams are cut to 8 via regional & super regional tournaments, the College World Series acts as a 10-day, double-elimination tournament to crown College Baseball’s National Champion.

Here are the teams competing this year:

• Texas

• Tennessee

• Vanderbilt

• Arizona (Eliminated)

• Mississippi State

• Stanford

• North Carolina State

• Virginia

Format-wise, the eight participating teams are split into two, four-team, double-elimination brackets, with the winners of each bracket playing in a best-of-three championship series.

The best part: Operating at 100% capacity this year, the College World Series is expected to deliver Omaha almost $100 million in local economic activity.

An annual baseball tournament that’s used to determine the best team in college baseball, the College World Series has been held in Omaha, Nebraska, for more than 70 years.

Fun Fact: The “World Series” name is derived from Major League Baseball’s World Series Championship and is currently an MLB trademark licensed to the NCAA for annual use.

After being held at Rosenblatt Stadium from 1950 to 2010 — a 20,000 seat stadium located on the south side of Omaha — the tournament moved to TD Ameritrade Park in 2011, a newer, larger stadium located just 3 miles north.

• Opened in 2011

• $150 million in construction costs

• Seats about 25,000 fans with the ability to expand to 35,000

The interesting part: As part of the new stadium agreement, the NCAA and College World Series of Omaha, Inc. — the non-profit group that organizes the event — agreed to a new 25-year contract extension, keeping the College World Series in Omaha through 2035.

With more than 330,000 people attending the tournaments 15 games in 2019, the economic impact on the local community of Omaha has been plentiful.

For example, a study from Creighton University found that the College World Series brought in $88.3 million in economic activity and supported 1,103 year-round jobs in 2019.

Even better, it’s growing.

Local Economic Activity

• 2014: $68.9 million

• 2019: $88.3 million

Year-Round Jobs Supported

• 2014: 848 jobs

• 2019: 1,103 jobs

The key is that most people who participate in the College World Series come from outside the state, side skirting the inevitable dilemma between tax revenue & the budget constraints of potential visitors.

But baseball fans visiting Omaha during the 10-day period aren’t just watching games at TD Ameritrade Park. Estimates suggest that nearly 25% of visitors also went to “The Old Market” — Omaha’s most historic & entertaining neighborhood — and paid to enter Omaha’s Henry Zoo, one of the largest tourist attractions in the city.

As it has for the last 100+ years, the local economic benefit of sporting events will be debated for centuries to come, but here’s the bottom line: Similar to the NFL’s Super Bowl, airdropping thousands of out-of-town visitors in a new city for a two-week period provides an incredible economic benefit.

When it comes to the local economy, they aren’t the only ones benefitting from the College World Series.

The tournament’s final three games in 2019 averaged almost 2 million viewers on ESPN. Not only was that significantly higher than the 1.6 million viewers ESPN averaged for Sunday Night Baseball, but it allows the NCAA to include the College World Series as a significant part of its media rights deal with ESPN.

In 2011, the NCAA included the College World Series as part of a $500 million television deal with ESPN for 24 sports championships through 2023-2024.

Sure, that’s small in comparison to the NCAA’s March Madness, which brings in about $800 million annually, or 80% of the NCAA’s total revenue. Still, considering the tournament produces about $10 million in profit each year, or ~$10% of all NCAA championship revenue, it has certainly become significant.

As always, I hope you have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

If you enjoyed today’s email, please share it with your friends!

At 44,000+ subscribers, Huddle Up is quickly becoming one of the largest sports business communities on the internet — every addition helps :)

Exercise When You Want, Where You Want, With Recess

Whether you’re still working from home or back at the office, your exercise routine needs to work for you—not against you.

And that’s where Recess, a new virtual fitness platform, comes in.

Designed so you can literally work out anywhere, Recess offers live and pre-recorded classes with expert instructors. You can easily plug into the elite trainer community on their searchable marketplace, specializing in everything from HIIT & yoga to strength training & cardio. With live and pre-recorded options, you can work out alone, sign up for group sessions, pick up a membership or even schedule one-on-one time with an instructor.

The best part? From now until June 30th, Huddle Up readers can get ONE MONTH FREE on any Recess Subscription. It’s their largest discount ever. Just sign up using the link below.