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Sports Economy MARISA WIGGLESWORTH: PUTTING USOPM ON STAGE STARTS WITH COMMUNITY
by KERI KAHN, Staff Writer
Six months into her role as CEO of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum (USOPM), Marisa Wigglesworth has a positive outlook.
Following its COVID-era opening, the USOPM has struggled to live up to the visions of Olympic City USA residents and museum backers, with lower-than-estimated attendance.
Low is a relative term though, as Wigglesworth points out.
“We are seeing lower attendance than the initial feasibility study projected,” she says. “However, when you benchmark other like museums, I’m not sure I would necessarily say the attendance we are seeing is significantly lower than we might expect in our first few years of operation.”
The USOPM is privileged to share stories of athletes from around the nation, and Wigglesworth intends to move it into its rightful place on the national stage. She also knows this effort begins locally.
“We have an obligation to the local community,” she says. “It’s the local community who invested and built this museum with a grand vision, and we can do both. We’re not going to try to be everything to everyone, but I have every confidence that, while we are growing and establishing our national presence, we can also elevate our service as a cultural asset and quality of life contributor for this community.”
With 39 staff members and an annual budget of just over $5 million, the museum welcomed a projected 88,000 visitors in 2023, up from 85,000 in 2022.
“We do still want to see more attendance, and I believe we will as we continue to build out our programming,” she says.
As Wigglesworth rounds out her first year, priorities now are building awareness, adding staff resources and expanding offerings. Currently, she says the museum is adult-leaning but with great potential to serve families with young children.
Family-friendly programming will be on the menu by summer, possibly including events like family workshops or summer camps in partnership with youth-serving organizations. Staffy will be added and focus will continue on an already successful meeting and event space rental program.
Prior to taking the USOPM’s helm, Wigglesworth was CEO of the Buffalo Museum of Science and Tifft Nature Preserve where she and a staff of 70 welcomed more than 200,000 annual visitors. She has also held leadership positions at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
Keri Kahn is a staff writer for the SoCo Business Forum & Digest.
