SPORTS PITTSBURGH

The SportsPITTSBURGH team set out to make 2022 the year of reconnection to maximize the opportunities presented with a “return to normal” in the sports events industry.

The team prioritized onboarding staff dedicated to booking new events; partnering with local venues and sports organizations to offer new experiences to event planners; using current and upcoming events to showcase the diversity of sports being contested in the region; and, introducing a new theme to follow the success of “Authentic. Iconic. Legendary.” These steps served as a guide to an extremely successful year for the SportsPITTSBURGH team.

Early in the year, Holly Perella was announced as the Business Development Director for SportsPITTSBURGH, a position that had been vacant since March 2020. With a primary objective to recruit new events from grassroots and national governing bodies that will utilize venues, accommodations and partners throughout Allegheny County, Perella continually appraises Pittsburgh’s current portfolio of competition venues and sport-specific expertise along with stakeholders’ interests and financial resources to develop an expanded sports group sales plan.

Pittsburgh hosted the Ultimate NCAA Basketball Weekend in March. To kick off the weekend, SportsPITTSBURGH and the Presidents’ Athletic Conference co-hosted the Division III Women’s Basketball Championship at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. The event started with eight regional finalists and ended with one National Champion. Concurrently, NCAA March Madness® came back to Pittsburgh. In partnership with Duquesne University and PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh hosted the First and Second Rounds of the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship for the sixth time since 2008. All told, the weekend saw 12 teams play nine games over four days with one National Champion crowned.

The NCAA Division III event staff returned to Pittsburgh in November to support the Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship, hosted by Saint Vincent College and SportsPITTSBURGH at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. This championship was the first of the 11 events Pittsburgh will host throughout the 2022-26 NCAA Championship cycle.

Annual events at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLCC) kicked off in February with the return of GK Sports Steel City Freeze. The two-day girls and boys club volleyball tournament welcomed a record number of teams and attendees. The Western PA Bruins, a local girls’ basketball club, returned in April with the 2022 Spring Tipoff. The tournament welcomed 287 girls AAU basketball teams competing in one of the first travel-team events of the season. Just one week later, Hoop Group’s Pittsburgh Jam Fest returned to the DLCC. The boys’ basketball showcase event highlighted the elite play of 540 teams from across the United States.

Residents and visitors alike celebrated the return of the DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon on the first Sunday in May. The iconic Pittsburgh event returned to neighborhood streets following a two-year hiatus. And once again, the East Coast Championships, a girls club volleyball tournament, returned to Pittsburgh Memorial Day weekend, utilizing hotels and filling restaurant seats, throughout the county during a typically slow-travel weekend for the region.

SportsPITTSBURGH marked the official countdown to the 2023 National Senior Games by welcoming the national association for its annual meeting in November. While the purpose of the four-day conference was to provide continuing education for individual state games’ directors and to conduct the business of the association, it also served as a de facto familiarization tour for more than 100 attendees who have direct communication with thousands of potential senior athletes. The attendees were treated to an in-depth tour of the DLCC, a lunch cruise on the Gateway Clipper, a media event with local games athletes and a closing night party in one of Downtown’s newest entertainment spaces – Five Iron Golf.

Throughout the year, the SportsPITTSBURGH staff attended and exhibited at industry events meant to connect host cities with potential event owners and deepen the understanding of each other’s needs. This included attending the TEAMS Conference + Expo ’22 with the ASM Global team from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The merged sales teams met with various event rights holders from USA Gymnastics and USA Wrestling to North American Gay Athletic Alliance and Powerboat Nationals – all in the Pittsburgh pavilion that introduced the theme, Pittsburgh: Relationships Reimagined. The messaging is designed to ask clients and staff to forget what they think they know about hosting events in Pittsburgh, and, instead, consider new partnerships and possibilities with the City of Champions.

2022 By The Numbers

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS IN PITTSBURGH ANNUAL DLCC SPORTS EVENTS

3 Events

20 Teams

400 Athletes and Coaches

4,158 Contracted Hotel Room Nights

2,800 Packed and Donated SisterFriend Kits

70,000 Attendance

19,000 Consumed Hotel Room Nights

1,290 Average Hotel Rooms on Peak Night

$29.6M Direct Visitor Spend

EVENTS HOSTED AND BOOKED IN 2022

HOSTED BOOKED

26 Events

93,000 Visitors

205,000 Attendees

$69.8M Direct Visitor Spend

40,000 Room Nights

43 Events

121,000 Visitors

285,000 Attendees $113.4M Direct Visitor Spend

95,000 Room Nights

Notable Achievements And Activities

• Promoted attendance for the 2023 National Senior Games during the GAMMA Pickleball Classic, Pennsylvania’s Keystone Games and the Huntsmen Games in Utah, where more than 12,000 athletes traveled to St. George, Utah, to compete and qualify for the National Senior Games

• Continued Pittsburgh’s NCAA championship and event hosting streak by crowning two national champions and sending one team to the men’s NCAA Sweet 16.

• Partnered with SisterFriend, INC., to pack and distribute 2,800 kits during the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship.

• Partnered with EventConnect to process 4,158 hotel reservations for Spring Tipoff, Pittsburgh Jam Fest and Pittsburgh Marathon, generating more than $1M in lodging revenue through these housing services.

• Attended the 2022 National Senior Games with staff from P3R and VisitPITTSBURGH to tour competition venues, meet with individual sports chairs and promote the Pittsburgh Games to more than 10,000 athletes.

• Represented the region at industryspecific shows: Sports ETA Annual Symposium, Connect Spring Marketplace, EsportsTravel Summit, Connect Sports Marketplace, SPORTS the Relationship Conference, and TEAMS Conference and Expo. These shows facilitated face-to-face appointments with sports event organizers representing more than 500 events.

• Supported the Sports & Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County’s efforts to increase awareness of its new Sports Event Fund and corresponding application process, sharing this new funding opportunity with qualified contacts who traditionally host events with significant tourism impact.

MAJOR SPORTS EVENTS SUPPORTED BY SPORTSPITTSBURGH IN 2022:

• 2022 Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix

• Direct Spend: $14.19M

• Attendance: 78,000

• 2022 DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon

• Direct Spend: $11.32M

• Attendance: 27,200

• 2022 NCAA Ultimate Basketball Weekend

• Direct Spend: $10.67M

• Attendance: 20,800

• 2022 Hoop Group Pittsburgh Jam Fest

• Direct Spend: $6.04M

• Attendance: 12,300

• 2022 East Coast Volleyball Championships

• Direct Spend: $5.25M

• Attendance: 11,200

• 2022 United States Hockey League Fall Classic

• Direct Spend: $3.51M

• Attendance: 5,500

• 2022 Premier Ice Prospects Labor Day Girls Fest

• Direct Spend: $2.42M

• Attendance: 3,800

• ATA International Fall National Tournament

• Direct Spend: $1.27M

• Attendance: 2,500

UPCOMING SPORTS EVENTS SUPPORTED BY SPORTSPITTSBURGH:

• 2025 USGA US Open

• Estimated Direct Spend: $22.84M

• Estimated Attendance: 35,000

• 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship –First and Second Rounds

• Estimated Direct Spend: $9.73M

• Estimated Attendance: 18,000

• 2023 Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix

• Estimated Direct Spend: $14.42M

• Estimated Attendance: 78,000

• 2023 DICK’S Sporting Goods

Pittsburgh Marathon

• Estimated Direct Spend: $11.32M

• Estimated Attendance: 40,000

• 2023 Hoop Group Pittsburgh Jam Fest

• Estimated Direct Spend: $6.34M

• Estimated Attendance: 12,300

• 2023 East Coast Volleyball Championships

• Estimated Direct Spend: $5.41M

• Estimated Attendance: 11,200

• 2024 USA Weightlifting National Championship Week

• Estimated Direct Spend: $2.28M

• Estimated Attendance: 2,500

• 2023 USA BMX Stars and Stripes Nationals

• Estimated Direct Spend: $1.92M

• Estimated Attendance: 4,100

• 2023 Premier Rugby Sevens Steel City Showdown

• Estimated Direct Spend: $1.05M

• Estimated Attendance: 2,400