6. Jason Gewirtz, Executive Editor SportsTravel Magazine – $52B Sports Travel Industry
Farrell Sports Business Podcast
Interviews with unicorns from sports business and their unique stories, dreams, ideas, insights, innovations, flops and career paths. Get a unique perspective of the inner workings of jobs working in sports beyond just pro sports leagues. Hosted by 30-year sports business veteran Matt Farrell, President of Farrell Sports and CEO of Bat Around.
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Farrell Sports Business (00:00)
On this week's Farrell Sports Business podcast, we're going to look at an industry that captures all of the numbers and economic impact of travel related to the sports industry. Think of every baseball tournament you've been to swim meet, golf tournament, gymnastics event, soccer, whatever it might be. All of those numbers are captured creating a $52 billion industry focused around youth and amateur sports.
And that doesn't even count people who are getting on a plane to go to an NFL game.
We're going to talk about e -sports, pickleball, cricket, rugby, they're heavy hitters when it comes to sports travel and tourism.
I'm the host, Matt Farrell. Today's guest is the executive editor and publisher of Sports Travel Magazine, Jason Gewirtz
Farrell Sports Business (01:04)
Jason, so great to see you, welcome.
Jason Gewirtz (01:07)
Thanks, Matt, great to see you as well. This is gonna be fun.
Farrell Sports Business (01:10)
So we've got so many topics to get into in different sports and impact on sports travel industry. But what is sports travel? It's multiple media properties, I know, but an overview would be helpful.
Jason Gewirtz (01:24)
Yeah, quick overview of what we do. So Sports Travel Magazine has been in business since 1997. We're a business to business publication and we serve the sports event industry. So our readers are sport event organizers of all kinds from amateur sports all the way through the professional levels. We aim to connect them with the travel industry, which for us are cities and venues that want to host events for the purpose of bringing people to town.
spending a night in a hotel room, spending money in a restaurant, exploring the community as tourists and travelers. That is an industry that exists in cities, large and small around the country. And so we connect the people who are making the pitch for why your sports event should be held in this particular location with the organizations that have events to put on. And so we write about those issues on a daily basis at SportsTravelMagazine .com. And I began as managing editor of Sports Travel.
and was purely on an editorial role, but our company actually does a little bit more. So we are part of a larger company called the North Star Meetings Group, actually North Star Travel Group, which is a global business that has other products in the travel industry, business to business that cover issues of leisure travel, business travel, meetings and conventions, people traveling to those. And so in the context there, Matt, while we publish the magazine, we also organize a few conferences and trade shows for the industry.
Our largest show being the Teams Conference, which is an acronym for travel events and management in sports. And we also organize an e -sports conference called the e -sports travel summit, which brings organizers of e -sports and video game competitions with the same world of cities and venues that want to host. So I now oversee our sports division of Northstar, which includes the magazine, sports travel, and also includes these opportunities for business development through conferences and events that we organize.
Farrell Sports Business (03:16)
That's a great overview. We're definitely going to jump into e -sports a little bit later, but you know, what I find is some people you think you work in sports, people automatically assume that's in a NFL team or an NBA team or MLB team. And the reasons I'm excited about this conversations is it's going to be so eyeopening of how many other avenues there are to work in this business. So really.
Jason Gewirtz (03:19)
For sure.
Farrell Sports Business (03:44)
You and your company recently issued and commissioned a study with sports ETA as a partner. And there's just a mind blowing number of sports related travel being a $52 billion industry. Can you talk about that a little bit and any other key takeaways from that study?
Jason Gewirtz (04:07)
Yeah, I'd be happy to, Matt. So that was, while we supported it and sponsored it as North Star, this was a study that was commissioned by Sports ETA, which is the Sports Events and Tourism Association. So all those people I described, both rights holders of events and destinations belong to this industry association. We work very closely with them. I'm actually on the board, serving my third term on the board of directors for Sports ETA, so we know them well. They commissioned a study, again, that we helped at North Star support.
to do and it was a state of the industry study. They issued one, Matt, interestingly, right before the pandemic, which served as kind of a baseline, first time comprehensive study. They issued one right after the pandemic, which as you can imagine, saw the numbers and the industry go down as any other industry, although we'll talk about that because it didn't go as down as you might think. And then this report just issued in April of this year is kind of a, okay, we're beyond the pandemic now. Where are we at? Are we?
back on pace where we were before all this stuff happened, are we even better? And what's most interesting to your point, Matt, this study actually doesn't include travel to professional sports events. And it doesn't include travel to most collegiate events except for championships. So it covers only amateur sports, youth and adult, but amateur sports and collegiate championships. And there's some reasonings behind why they didn't include.
You know, you're going to the Broncos game or you're going to the San Francisco Giants game. The assumption being that most of that traffic is going to be local and market. Sure, some people will travel, but the vast majority of that stuff is taking place anyway because there's a professional team that has a venue and they've got to fill 80 nights a year or 16 nights a year, whatever their sport is. So this is really the heart of the market that we cover. While we cover professional sports as well, and there's no doubting that people travel to those things and it's a source of an economic driver.
The amateur sports and collegiate sports scene is so large, especially with travel ball and youth sports, that that $52 billion number that you referenced, that's the direct economic impact just last year of people traveling largely to amateur sports and into the various collegiate championships, which is, as you know, those events, say for the NCAA, it's not just the Final Four in basketball. They have about 90 sports across all three divisions.
They all need a home for their championships. So the Division II lacrosse championship isn't just showing up somewhere. There are cities bidding for the rights to host that event, to bring those teams to town, to bring those fans to town. And so that's the heart of the market. And this study that you were referencing just came out and said that the direct economic impact is 52 billion. That's from people traveling, spending a night, eating food, going to attractions, all the things you spend money on when you go to an event.
There's a larger number that's 128 billion, Matt, in that report that's indirect. So that looks at all the jobs created, the person who handed you the drink at the concession stand, and the money that they're going to spend from that salary of being paid to hand you the drink at the concession stand. I mean, there's a larger economic impact. So economists will bore you to tears with what all that means, but I'm mostly focused on the numbers.
And there were a couple other big numbers in that report that I'll just highlight for you in addition to those headline numbers. One, that study showed that there were 200 million people last year that traveled to one of these sports events. You know, again, mostly amateur and collegiate. That's a pretty big number in itself. And it showed that they filled 73 million room nights, hotel room nights. So one room night is, you know, you spending one night in a hotel. The reason that's significant for cities and the travel industry that we cover.
is most of the convention bureaus and sports commissions around the country who are out there trying to attract this business, they get paid. Their budgets come from you spending a night in a hotel. You might notice the hotel bed tax whenever you spend a night in a hotel, and it could be something wildly different depending on what city you are. That money goes back to a convention bureau or sports commission to then market themselves as an attractive destination for sports events, for meetings, for conventions, for leisure travel, all the stuff. So...
That's why this notion of hotel room nights, which may not seem a natural metric, you know, in the sports industry for a lot of these big events, certainly anything you're watching on television on the weekend, any mega event, any big event, but even, you know, your youth soccer tournament that your kids playing in that you just traveled to somewhere down the line, someone is, is measuring how many nights did you spend in a hotel? They're interested in the other money you spend in town, but that hotel number has always been a big metric for this industry.
because that's partly how the cities get paid to then attract more business. So it's not a natural one, but it's interesting. So there were 73 million room nights last year generated from sports related travel, which is even within the travel industry, Matt, it's a big number. It's a market that is growing. There's always been leisure travel. You can go on a cruise, you can go on vacation somewhere. That's the same thing. Those cities are looking for how many nights did you spend in our community?
And now, over the last 25 years or so, certainly since our magazine began and since Sports ETA began as an association, that's being tracked through sports, which doesn't necessarily, if you weren't paying attention to it, wouldn't seem unnatural. And the last thing I'll throw to you, Matt, just from that report headline number, and the one that to me says as much about anything, when Sports ETA asked all these cities to give them information to come up with this report.
Over 60 % of them said that sports is the largest generator of hotel room nights in their community. More than leisure travel, more than business travel, more than a big convention that comes to town. It's some sort of sports event and it's mostly amateur or collegiate sports events that's driving all this economic business. So that's how we get to a magazine called Sports Travel and an industry in itself that most people may not, you know, if they're outside of the sports industry.
or even if they're in the sports industry sometimes, they may not quite pick up on that exists.
Farrell Sports Business (10:04)
It's just a massive number. And as you know, I have a little bit of history working in youth sports organizations like USA swimming. I always felt, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I always felt that youth sports were somewhat recession proof. Meaning as a family, I'm probably going to cut other things before I cut my kids' activities. Do you find that to be the case? What's your thought there?
Jason Gewirtz (10:33)
I absolutely do. Nothing is recession proof and nothing is pandemic proof as we just experienced the last couple years. But it does hold up, Matt, that just to your exact point, no matter what the economy is doing, if your kid is involved actively in sports and they have the chance to play in a championship somewhere, it's in Orlando and it's in Philadelphia or in Denver or wherever, you're going to do everything possible to make that trip happen, even if you sacrifice.
some other trip or some other expense that you have. No one wants to disappoint their kids and not everyone's on the professional track, even though most parents think their kids probably are. But it's just the experience. You know, the kids on a team and they're going to go play somewhere and there are plenty of opportunities once you get involved in organized sports for that to happen. The fascinating case study, of course, is the pandemic that we just went through. And this industry, like all industries, of course, suffered. However, in a lot of ways, it.
showed the strength of this industry because in large parts of the country, Matt, and you can imagine where they would be, you know, Southeast, Southern states, states that were more open, you know, during that, during the worst of it, when everything was closing down, sports events in some communities never really stopped. They might've stopped for a week or two, you know, at the very beginning. But the outdoor stuff, softball, lacrosse, those showcase events for kids who were on track for a college scholarship.
You know, those are massive events that happen. Hundreds of teams in soccer and softball across that take place. Those events still took place. And we know it because, as I was describing the economics of these convention bureaus, they live off of hotel room stays. Well, when the pandemic happened, no one was staying in a hotel anywhere. No one was going anywhere. And so in a lot of cases, these cities, they're quasi -public entities. They get tax money, but they sort of operate over here.
Nonetheless, they need people staying in hotels and some of their budgets went to zero, you know, in the Northeast and some of these places that completely shut down. In the areas where these sports events were happening, we know it because we were hearing it, in some cases, 100 % of the hotel rooms being filled were sports events. And I think it was an awakening of sorts within the travel industry in some of these convention bureaus where they might have 10 employees, eight of whom are chasing meetings and conventions for their convention center and one or two are...
the sports market. I think a lot of these CEOs look at the sports person over there and go, explain again what you do because 100 % of our business right now is from your softball tournament that just took place outside. And now we're seeing cities invest more and kind of double down on it. Cause I think through this report that we were just referencing and others, I think they're starting to realize this is a major source of economy for them. And most cities have a field or fields.
Farrell Sports Business (13:00)
Ha ha ha.
Jason Gewirtz (13:17)
And if they don't, they're investing in fields or fields to take that business in. And there's plenty of business for them to have. I mean, we see new organizations all the time, you know, event series. Again, I'm not even talking about NFL or MLB. That stuff exists as well. We're talking mostly, you know, massive youth sports events that are taking place around the country. So we just sort of witnessed that, Matt, where, you know, at the worst of times in a pandemic that no one could have envisioned sports.
to a large extent was leading the way for a lot of these communities as a business and a piece of the travel business.
Farrell Sports Business (13:52)
Well, you've inadvertently provide the perfect segue because you've talked about fields and events and outdoors. And so let's talk about e -sports. I'm just fascinated by this topic because I think maybe a perception is that that is very online and virtual driven and probably some truth to that.
But how does esports fit in this big picture that you've just laid out?
Jason Gewirtz (14:24)
Yeah, it obviously lives there online as well. There's no doubting that the vast majority of video game and e -sports competitions takes place in the ether, you know, people somewhere on a computer like we're having this conversation in our own respective places, and that exists. However, for longer than you probably realize, there has been an ecosystem of live events, in -person competitions, where the best of the best at a particular game...
are gathering at a convention or an organized tournament in a convention center or in a hotel ballroom or in an arena at the largest, most professional scale. We started tracking that early on, Matt, and I think maybe 15, 20 years ago, there was a conversation of, all right, it's esports. Is this really sports? This isn't what you and I would consider sports. No one's sweating or moving around. But we saw it as no different when we saw an esports competition at the highest level.
being held in an NBA arena over a weekend with 18 ,000 people showing up and buying concessions and doing all the stuff they do, that doesn't look any different than an NBA game or fans coming to watch the best in the world. So we put the debate of is this sports, is it not over here? These are competitions that are driving people to attend no different than traditional sports. And it's a growing and emerging industry.
I mentioned at the outset, we have a whole business conference now dedicated just to this. We were doing tracks of programming at our traditional sports conference teams on e -sports. And we realized early on, Matt, that it's while there are similarities to organizing these events and they're high production at the highest level, I mean, they're incredible production events. It's a slightly different conversation. It's a slightly to a lot different conversation on how you organize these things. There's internet, there's power, there's all sorts of things involved.
And it's a little more nuanced than sports, man. As you know, you mentioned swimming. Nobody owns swimming. So if you or I want to organize a swimming tournament, we just go out and find a pool and we organize a swimming tournament, we market it and we sell tickets or whatever we want to do. No one's telling us we can't do it. In e -sports, these people are playing video games that are owned by major publishers, private for -profit corporations who develop the video game. So you need a license from that.
from that publisher to even hold an event, there's a little more involved than traditional sports, but it's absolutely an industry. It's an industry at the amateur, collegiate, and professional levels, as we talk about traditional sports. And the collegiate space is actually the craziest of all. It's probably the highest growth. Years ago, the NCAA decided this is not sports, this is not for us, which was their decision to make after studying it. What's happened is there are, through athletic departments in some cases,
through a different department on campus and other cases. Almost every university you can think of has an e -sports team. Some of them are varsity, some of them are getting scholarships. Many of them are building venues on campus now for their competitions. And there are essentially private organizations that have become the NCAA. So you have these organizations that have seven, 800 universities that are members of this association that are competing for championships and prizes.
And it's crazy, Matt, you'll have the University of Alabama versus some commuter school you've never heard of in Pittsburgh competing against each other for the championship of something. But all of that is happening. I have a 14 -year -old at home, so I know this very well. This is his world. He's into traditional sports, but he's way into the video games and watching the best of the best compete. In fact, I'm even taking him for some sports -related travel in September.
To Fort Worth, Texas where which just hosted the big USA gymnastics event last week at their Dickies arena in September They're hosting the World Championships of Rocket League Which is a great video game where it's kind of like soccer with but there are cars instead of people and you've kind of drive the soccer ball It's amazing. It's easy to follow, you know, there's a two to three five to two whatever the score is You can you can follow it easily. There's a World Championship for that video game over a weekend in Fort Worth My son follows that game. We're going we're gonna spend the weekend in Fort Worth
watching the best people in the world play this video game that he's obsessed with. It's happening in my own household, Matt. Yeah.
Farrell Sports Business (18:38)
that's so good. You got quite the focus group. So I was thinking, you know, there's an organization that I admire for a lot of reasons is Tampa Bay Rays. They're, and we have a business relationship there in another part of my life, but they also are really progressive about hosting online tournaments playing MLB the show that culminate in in person.
Jason Gewirtz (18:45)
Yes.
Farrell Sports Business (19:06)
So if you take the sports out of the word e -sports and excuse me, maybe put the word sports back into e -sports, where are you seeing like travel related to sports related games, MLB, the show, Madden, the new NCAA football game coming back out? How do you see sports fitting in with e -sports?
Jason Gewirtz (19:30)
Yeah, I mean, there are certain video game titles that are obviously more traditional sports related. You know, we live in the Olympic world, as you know, Matt, we follow Olympic organizations very closely as part of our universe of event organizers. And you're seeing very traditional international federations, say in the Olympic world that are finding ways to embrace kids like my son, I mean, who as a way into the sport, having a video game component to it. Baseball is a good example because you can play.
any number of video games that look like baseball and you're playing the game and there you go. The World Baseball Softball Confederation is doing a world championship just on a video game of baseball in the hopes that it might spark interest in the real version of the sport. Same with FIFA, they're obviously very far along and well established in the video game version of their sport and they use that to attract fans to go to the real games.
Some of these titles, Matt, do have competitions, just video game competitions that look like what I was describing, you know, in an arena or in a convention center or a hotel ballroom or what have you. And then some federations as well, while it's not e -sports, it may not be a video game, we're seeing a lot of sort of virtual sports. So you have a very traditional sport like rowing, which has an indoor rowing championship now. And you put your head around that and think, well, that doesn't make any sense. How are they going to put a river through an arena?
It's just people on rowing machines, you know, but they find a way to up the production value and you can see a scoreboard of who's rowing, you know, who's farther along and that's a competition and that's a whole discipline now even within world rowing, which I think is the oldest of the international federations, you know, in the Olympic movement. They have an indoor version of that sport, a virtual version of it. Some sports like cycling and rowing lend themselves to that. Others like baseball, you know, there's a video game that looks like baseball and you can play it.
A whole other conversation, as you know, for another day on whether any of that belongs in the Olympics or needs to be or should be. But those are discussions that are happening. So we see this merging of traditional sports and e -sports. And at that highest level, at the professional level, some of those traditional sports, Matt, I think it's a play to just gain interest in the other versions out there that exist. Throwing my son under the bus here again, but same thing. He plays the FIFA video game and now...
watches Leeds United as his team and we're up on Saturday mornings watching the actual Leeds United, you know, from live feed from England because he's played them on the video game. He knows all the guys on the team and now he's interested in the actual game, you know, watching it and becoming a fan. So it does happen and I think that that's some of the conversation taking place.
Farrell Sports Business (22:03)
Makes perfect sense.
So slight change of gears and this question comes from the impact on sports related travel. I happen to love and relatively new to the sport of pickleball, whether you like pickleball or not, what are you seeing from a economic impact of pickleball in the, in the context of this conversation? There's no doubt about the participation.
hockey stick of growth, but how's it factoring into this whole conversation of sports related travel?
Jason Gewirtz (22:43)
Yeah, it's real, it's legitimate, it's legitimate, Matt. I mean, we follow the participation studies out there and there's no doubt you hear it, you know, pickleball is the fastest growing sport. It is by all the groups that study participation levels. As you know, maybe 10 years ago, this was a game for seniors and it was, you know, fairly niche. It's everywhere, all ages, all the time. And what I'm most interested in, you know, in following it, there are professional leagues now that are forming and they're merging and...
unmerging and you know there's a little growth that needs to happen there so you know so be it but there are people who are the best at what they do and I have no doubt there are fan bases that would travel to go watch those competitions you know to watch watch the best of the best compete but I'm most interested in venue developments as kind of a sign of where this is going because I you know it's under undervenued if that's a word right now you know there are a lot of still a lot of tennis courts being converted you know with tape and maybe not the most ideal situation but there are
we are starting to see pickleball specific venues that are being built. To me, that's going to be a sign of where the growth is. You know, can we get to arena situations or, you know, venues where big competitions could be held, even if they're amateur competitions or opens or something that people would travel to to go compete in. I just got a press release this morning as we're talking from sports facilities companies, one of the big outfits out there that develop youth sports complex or community sports complexes.
Just this morning they they sent out a release that said half of their venues right now have pickleball And in their studies it was something like 90 % of community planners as they're considering new complexes 90 % of them are factoring in pickleball Into their permanent structures that they're building. We're not there yet You know because the growth has been so fast so quick on participation But I see that as kind of the next step here Matt and that's what I've that's what I've got my eye on the most is will we see?
specific pickleball venues that can accommodate some of this growth. At some point the participation growth will cease being hockey stick and will be more of a lacrosse stick. I don't know what the thing would be from there. It will continue to grow, but nothing can grow as fast as they are. We're talking hundreds of percent growth a year. And when you study those things, a good sport may go up three or 4 % a year, and pickleball's been at like 80, 90%, the last couple years each year.
So it's massive, it's completely legitimate, the interest in it, but from an organized sports level, that transition from recreational to a more structured event environment that you might want to go compete in outside of your home community because it's fun to play, that's kind of the next step for pickleball. I think it'll happen for sure. We've seen it in other sports over time.
Farrell Sports Business (25:27)
I think that's going to be interesting of how much is recreational that I play locally versus the elite competitions like a national championships. I can see traveling to that. But I think that's going to be an interesting to watch interesting one to watch. But, and as they say, and now for something completely different, I'd like your take on cricket in the United States and.
Maybe as a sport, but certainly its impact on the sports economy here and what you see.
Jason Gewirtz (26:01)
Yeah, it's it's emerging, Matt, for sure. As you probably know, we follow this stuff closely. Cricket will be in the Olympics in Los Angeles in twenty eight, twenty eight. I think that's going to be a game changer for the sport. You know, that visibility, that realization that even in a city like Los Angeles, it could have gone with any number of other sports. They chose cricket as we're talking here. The T20 Cricket World Cup is taking place in various communities across the United States.
T20 is like a shorter more accessible version of the sport if you know anything about cricket and I don't claim to be anywhere near the expert on cricket But what I do know is you know, the real game can take four or five days to complete, you know And so you got to be a fan of that sport to invest the time I mean people think baseball is too long and then you get into into cricket and it can be hard to follow if you've ever read like an AP version of a Cricket story sometimes even though it's in English. It's like I'm not sure I'm that it's in English. There are a lot of terms and
if you're not familiar with the sport that is, you know, the sport needs to overcome. However, we know the countries where it's big and we know that there are enormous communities in the United States of people from those countries and India and Pakistan, England, you know, Australia, some of the powerhouses of the sport. And now you're seeing this more accessible, shorter version, which will be on the Olympic agenda. T20 can be played a fraction of the time, certainly within a day, within a couple of hours. So I think...
you're going to see it become more accessible. You're going to see it become more visible. This event taking place in the United States, this World Cup for the T20 version, it's in Texas, it's in Florida, and it's on Long Island in New York where they have built a temporary 34 ,000 seat stadium in a park on Long Island, not too far from where I grew up there, that for the course of a few weeks is going to host the cricket world. And that visibility goes around the world. So.
I've seen it where I live in suburban Denver, Matt, on the weekends as a group that plays cricket in my local park. We go out there and they're playing every weekend. So, you know, it's one little anecdote, but it has a long way to go. But that visibility that they're going to get in Los Angeles, I'm leading up to it, I think will be a turning point for it. And we know it in our own magazine, Sports Travel. When we write about cricket, there's some of the most viewed stories. I mean, even if we're just writing about, you know, this World Cup or anything else.
People are finding that coverage and sometimes it amazes us and we look around and say there's absolutely something here Like how are we getting this much traffic on a story that you wouldn't necessarily think would generate that kind of traffic? It's a it's interesting. So There's a enormous growth curve there, but it's it's a big growth curve Matt We don't have a lot of cricket specific venues We do have some and there have been you know leagues that have kind of come and gone at the professional level here But it's coming for sure
Farrell Sports Business (28:47)
You know, it, it seems to be a sleeping giant to me when I grew up in a relatively small town in Kansas, soccer was not even an option in my childhood. And now look at it today. I just feel like it could be a sleeping giant.
Jason Gewirtz (29:00)
Yeah, I feel the same way. There's something there.
Farrell Sports Business (29:04)
So going to give you the last word, Jason, anything else that you're working on trends you see that you would want to share.
Jason Gewirtz (29:14)
Yeah, I mean we talked about some of this international business, you know one of the big things that we're following in the sports world is the United States is going to be home here over the next decade to some of the largest events in International sports and so we just mentioned this cricket World Cup that's taking place kind of as we speak and as we record this Obviously the World Cup soccer is coming in 26 to mostly to the US but some in Canada some in Mexico
The Olympic and Paralympic Games are of course are coming to Los Angeles in 28 and in just a few weeks time at the start of the Paris Games they're going to award another Winter Games to Salt Lake City in 2034. So we're going to have two Olympic Games, you know, coming here over the next decade. The Rugby World Cup, which is something some people may not follow but is probably right after the Olympics and Soccer World Cup, the largest sports events in the world. Both the men's and the women's tournaments are coming to the United States.
I think in 31 and 33 respectively. So we're on the cusp here of the largest international events in sports coming right here to the United States. And we are already seeing based on what we track in the magazine and at our events, a tremendous interest from European based, Asian based organizations, sports organizations that wanna be in the market here in the United States. In fact,
We talked about our Teams conference two years ago. We launched a European version of that conference and we're going to be there in two weeks time in London for year three. And that is just based on this interest map that we're anticipating and seeing of organizations not based in the United States that in the wake of all of these events are wanting to come here. And they're not necessarily wanting to come automatically to Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, the places that you would anticipate.
They want to come to hundreds of mid -sized markets that they're not familiar with that can absolutely accommodate certain disciplines of their events. So that's happening and it's something to be aware of. You're going to see such a high profile in the US of hosting these events. Tremendous opportunities for cities, tremendous opportunities for inbound traffic and travel to those events. But that's one that we are absolutely watching over the next couple of years.
Farrell Sports Business (31:34)
It sounds like a lot of job security in the sports travel business to me, but it's impressive.
Jason Gewirtz (31:37)
been it's been 16 years for me Matt I started out as a newspaper journalist, you know writer and editor just on the news side But I always loved sports and then when I heard about this magazine Sports Travel like I don't know what that is But that sounds like the most amazing thing I've ever heard of and it's been the most amazing thing I've ever heard of it. The industry is just so interesting. It's constantly evolving And it's remains on the upswing, you know years after I started here with the you know
new as we talked about new destinations getting involved, new markets, new sports organizations, new sports that are just emerging and finding their way. So it's constantly evolving. It's so much fun. The industry is terrific. If you can't have, we talk about it all the time. If you can't have fun with what we're writing about and the businesses we connect and the, you know, you're absolutely in the wrong place, but it's yeah, it's incredible.
Farrell Sports Business (32:28)
Well, I love talking Broncos, Rockies, Nuggets, Avs as much as anybody, but it's just, it's really fascinating to talk rugby, cricket, pickleball, and esports and the impact. So Jason, thank you so much.
Jason Gewirtz (32:42)
Absolutely. As my son says all the time when I talk to people, he's like, you know the weirdest famous people, because we'll mention some sport that I was involved with. And to some extent, he's right. Yeah, sports is way bigger than just the big things that you may follow on a day -to -day basis.
Farrell Sports Business (32:57)
Well, it's eye -opening and always, always a pleasure. Jason, thank you so
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