Jason Siegel, President & CEO, Greater Orlando Sports Commission
Jason Siegel, president and CEO of Greater Orlando Sports Commission, spoke to Invest: about the explosion of sports tourism in the region, and the many ways sports tourism contributes to economic gains as well the overall well-being of the community. “Quality of life for a resident in our community is impacted by having the many offerings, at multiple price points, that our sports tourism community can bring,” he said.
How has Sports Business Journal’s designation of Greater Orlando as the No. 1 event-hosting destination impacted the city and its reputation for sports?
It’s an opportunity for folks behind the scenes and in front of the camera to feel a significant amount of pride in the work they’ve been doing; we have many industry leaders in our market who have been in their positions for quite some time. Nobody bats a thousand in this industry, so you must have thick skin to be involved in an incredibly competitive environment. These designations are an opportunity for those individuals and their organizations to be proud of their achievements. While taking a victory lap and being recognized is nice, the competition has never been more intense. Our competitors are savvy and educated. There’s a lot of communication and transparency around what is deemed a successful outcome in our business. We must take the accolades in stride and understand that it’s just a building block.
For those organizations that have not done business in Orlando, it’s an opportunity for them to get a stronger sense of the success that they can expect if they decide to bring their event here to our community and, at the same time, for those who have done work in our community for several years and who have interacted with the four or five dozen stakeholders in the sports tourism industry community in our market, they know that they’re going to have successful outcomes when they come and work with us.
What recent wins in sports tourism have significantly boosted the local economy and community engagement?
We’ve found tremendous success in the youth and amateur space. It should be visible to everybody if you look at the 45 to 50 venues available to us to host events. The weather is usually lovely for almost the entire year. If it doesn’t involve snow, we can generally host it here. The youth and amateur space is about 65% to 70% of our business.
We can also unite and navigate two major marquee events on the same weekend. We’ve had Travis Scott on a Thursday and Megacon over the weekend at the Convention Center. They had about 160,000 participants and registrants. We had 100,000 people that same weekend at the U.S. Olympic Marathon and another 50,000-plus at the NFL Pro Bowl, all within a four-and-a-half-day period. We have a tremendous amount of elasticity. We have incredible human resources and human capital. We have excellent leadership and a collaborative spirit.
Beyond economic gains, how does the sports tourism industry contribute to the community’s overall well-being in terms of social and cultural benefits?
Quality of life for a resident in our community is impacted by having the many offerings, at multiple price points, that our sports tourism community can bring. Residents can look ahead and select from a March Madness basketball game, see their favorite wakeboard water skier, and watch NFL players play in the Pro Bowl. They can look forward to a WWE match and the summer of international soccer we’re getting ready to host. We’re proud to have our UCF Knights here in town. Anytime we can retain, create, or bring a new piece of business to our community, especially in the youth sports space, it’s an opportunity to reduce the burden on those families that otherwise would have had to travel to another community and pay more.
What critical partnerships with local businesses, venues, and stakeholders are you leveraging?
As opportunities present themselves, whether it’s a five-year bid cycle, a two-year bid cycle, or a six-week bid cycle, in some cases, you have a very short period to put into responding to an RFP. You must have chemistry, collaboration, and communication in your marketplace between the sports stakeholders, venue operators, airport management teams, and destination management. Organizations, our hotel, lodging, and restaurant partners must be in lockstep. You need to be able to respond and keep a competitive advantage when you have the time to put a bid together. We don’t have six degrees of separation. There’s a constant conversation among leadership, whether we’re bidding on the World Cup or youth soccer.
The leadership in our community is educated. They understand that sports tourism is a significant portion of our economy. When we have conversations with local leadership, they know the critical elements of what we’re trying to accomplish. We can respond thoughtfully by constantly communicating, educating, and updating our partners in this space.
How have fan expectations shifted over the years, such as people wanting a whole experience versus simply watching a game?
Live events are back, and they’ve never been better. The fan expectation continues to evolve, and the great work that professional teams – who day in and day out have season ticket holders, group ticket buyers, and individual ticket sales – and many of our partners are doing in that space is setting the tone for what a ticket purchaser should expect when they come to a venue. We work diligently with our partners in this space to ensure we do everything we can. A lot of times, we talk about the student-athlete experience. There’s an expectation that they have an unparalleled experience and no better community than ours, which has such an excellent reputation for hospitality. We have tremendous assets at our fingertips, surrounded by Disney, Universal, and SeaWorld. Great sports teams like the Magic, Orlando City Soccer, Orlando Pride, and UCF Knights exist.
What are your goals for further growth in sports tourism in Greater Orlando?
We have a vision built around expanding and investing in our facilities. Our vision for the future works in lockstep with not only that investment and those infrastructure upgrades but also with an eye on the continual addition of new hotel and lodging opportunities and restaurants. We’re fortunate that when a sports parent of an athlete comes to our community for a three-day tournament, it’s very likely that they’ll extend their stay for a day or two because they’re going to go to Universal or Disney. Universal’s new Epic Universe park will open next summer in addition to the opening of Terminal C at the airport and another big project downtown, a sports and entertainment district. We must continue to evolve and have our vision set in concert with all of this additional activity happening around our community. We’re four counties wide, so this is not just the city of Orlando or Orange County. We’re keeping up with about 40 to 50 different sports venues in our region, which can be located within a 90-mile radius.
As we look to the future, in addition to international soccer and UCF moving into the Big 12, we’ve got an eye on the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which will be an excellent opportunity for our country. We just hosted the U.S. Olympic marathon. We had Paralympic swimming in town. We had U.S. fencing in town, so we will have our sights set on conversations with many of the Olympic governing bodies of sport to look for additional opportunities as we prepare to welcome 200-plus nations to the United States in the summer of 2028.
