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Canadian Curling Association claims its major events provided a $57 million dollar boost last season
Sports events create economic activity, of that there is little doubt.
Fans buy tickets, merchandise, food and drink. Some travel from out of town and stay in hotels. Some frequent restaurants and bars, hail taxis and maybe even spend spare time checking out the local shops and malls, dropping a few dollars there, too.
That money goes around, for sure. Just how much of an impact it has on the host town or city is highly debatable. In fact, it has been debated for years and years.
The Canadian Curling Association issued a media release, today, claiming that its big events - The Brier, Scotties, and the like, provided a total economic impact of tens of millions of dollars, last season.
$57 million dollars, to be precise, spread out over five cities and five provinces; Kitchener, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Kamloops, British Columbia; Montreal, Quebec and Saint John, New Brunswick.
From the release:
All told, the championship events last season generated an estimated total economic impact to the host communities and provinces of $57 million, on such varied services as hotels, restaurants and retail.
The CCA says the $57 million number was arrived at through what's called the Sport Tourism Economic Assessment Model, or STEAM. That is a fiscal work up provided through an organization called The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance (CSTA), which was created in the year 2000, in association with the Canadian Tourism Commission. STEAM is a complicated blend of formulas and indicators that the CSTA says can reasonably pin down the economic impact of an event.
The Canadian Curling Association did not disclose a detailed breakdown of the $57 million dollar claim. In an email from the CCA, on behalf of its Chief Executive Officer, Greg Stremlaw (who is also the chair of the CSTA), an explanation was given:
"Because some of those figures are proprietary in nature; in some cases, the figures were secured through the host city itself via a third party and shared only internally with us."
"But the fact remains that the methodology used to come to those figures, and the overall number of $57 million is very sound, and is used by governments and other agencies, and it takes into account five events: the Tim Hortons Brier, Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Ford World Women’s, Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings and the Capital One Pre-Trials."
STEAM numbers have been used in the past to measure the economic impacts of such events as The Grey Cup; The 100th Grey Cup Festival, in 2012 for instance. The CSTA did provide a detailed breakdown of its numbers in that case, and they can be found here. The STEAM model claimed that the 100th Grey Cup and its festival provided an "Industry Output" of over $133 million for the city of Toronto and province of Ontario. That is the number that correlates to the $57 million the CCA has put up with regard to the economic impact of those five events last season. The CSTA does say, in its Grey Cup document, that industry output does involve some "double counting."
Another way to look at it would be through "Gross Domestic Product Economic Impact." The CSTA defines that as containing the "net total of all economic activity," a lower number. It logs the 2012 Grey Cup's GDP at around $70 million. The CCA estimates its GDP around the five events to be in the vicinity of $32 million.
A lot of numbers, a lot of calculations. If you really want to dig into the minutiae of the kind of epic number-crunching we're talking about here, do check out the Grey Cup document.
Curling events certainly could not be held in the same economic regard as the Grey Cup, at least not as a one off. But you'd have to believe they'd be a far sight more lucrative than, say, the Canadian Senior Men's Baseball Championship. STEAM projections for that event, in Fredericton, in 2016, claim an impact of just under a million dollars.
Hard to say if those five curling events - mostly driven by The Brier, The Scotties and the Olympic Trials one would assume - could really offer a $57 million dollar benefit, but backers of STEAM are big on the system's veracity.
You can easily find detractors. Many of those are skeptical of the numbers crunched when it comes to the benefit of sports, though usually that skepticism is aimed at the cost of a new stadium, or the impact of having a sports team in a municipality. Or, as a more recent example, of having LeBron James play for you.
There's no shortage of people who think it's all voodoo economics and that the benefit of these events is a wash at best; that the money would be spent anyway, even if its impact would then be more diffuse. That's hard to prove, too, and to think that every dollar that is spent by a sports fan at a particular event would only be spent on something else, seems questionable. There's always a savings account in which dollars can lie dormant, after all.
No, it's hard to argue that a sports event doesn't provide a catalyst for wallets to be opened. Like conventions or entertainment attractions, a big time sports happening can do that. As well, it can just energize a community, excite it and inflate civic pride. All good things.
Stremlaw, in the CCA release, makes it clear that his organization wants potential tournament hosts to realize that curling can kickstart the cash registers. It's a big message for the CCA to get out.
“One of our main goals is to make sure our host cities reap the benefits of hosting a Canadian Curling Association championship. We know it’s a major undertaking to host a championship curling event, so there should be a reward for doing that. The numbers tell you that cities that host our events come away with a significant economic boost, and the curling community is left with a legacy that will help our sport in the long run. The message is clear that our events are difference-makers for the host communities.”
That last line is the important one, really.
To move forward and to keep major curling events healthy, the CCA needs to have those events sought after. The best way to have them sought after is to provide proof that they can generate fiscal action in your city. (Though to be fair, the CCA release does point to important benefits that are not of the financial variety)
Future hosts undoubtedly will ask the question: "What's in it for us?"
Millions of dollars in economic benefit. That is, if you're inclined to believe the numbers.