Tourism is a 'sleeper pick' for economic development
For years, I’ve written countless articles on the benefits that youth sports tourism has on the local economy. And it made sense: Hundreds of kids and their families come to Gillette to compete in a sports tournament, staying in our hotels, eating at our restaurants and seeing what our community has to offer.
And I’ve been through four iterations of the National High School Finals Rodeo in Gillette. I’ve driven past the Energy Capital Sports Complex and Bicentennial Park when they have tournaments going on. I’ve covered tournaments that were held at Cam-plex.
But last weekend, it actually clicked with me. For three days at the end of September, 16 high schools were in Gillette for the state high school tennis tournament.
Games were played at four locations around Gillette, including at the Rec Center field house, which allows the state tournament to continue should we get bad weather (which never happens this time of year). This isn’t something many communities can offer. It’s just one of the many assets that make Campbell County stand out in terms of youth sports.
Sure, it was fun to watch players go through the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat and all those other sports cliches, but what stood out to me was the families that showed up to watch their kids play.
People who traveled from Jackson, Laramie, Rock Springs and Green River, people who brought their camping chairs and umbrellas and sat back and watched the show. I even saw a couple of dogs, who must have been so confused seeing all those tennis balls that they couldn’t go fetch.
And all of these people were staying in Gillette for a few days. The town’s population temporarily grew by a few hundred. And this is just one of the smaller tournaments hosted here.
No one is saying sports tourism will replace the coal industry. In fact, very few things can replace coal, which has provided thousands of high-paying jobs in the community and billions of dollars to local and state governments.
It will take a number of industries to help make up for the declining revenues from the fossil fuel industry. I apologize in advance for comparing the economy to something as trivial as fantasy football, but if Campbell County’s economy was a fantasy football team, think of coal, oil and gas as three workhorse running backs that are in the latter halves of their Hall of Fame careers.
Carbon capture is that second- or third-year player who has a lot of hype surrounding him, but at this point the excitement is based more on potential than results. And manufacturing is the veteran quarterback who’s been in the league seemingly forever.
But tourism is that sleeper pick, the player who always seems to surprise people despite having a track record of performing well year after year. Usually an after-thought that doesn’t get drafted until the middle rounds, it often ends up being one of your team’s best performers.
We’ve heard it too many times before: Gillette’s not pretty, it doesn’t have mountains, it can’t possibly host a state-of-the-art shooting complex.
Last I checked, you don’t need mountains to host a youth sports tournament. You just need the facilities and local leaders who have a vision for what Campbell County can be and are willing to make those investments.
Gillette is where it is today in part because past leaders have made those investments, even if it might not have been popular at the time.
We hope future leaders don’t ignore the benefits that tourism, especially when it comes to youth sports, can have on the economy moving forward.