The Sports Tourism Commission is funded by the Transient Room Tax, which has been impacted by the ongoing pandemic. According to Dudley, they had originally budgeted for $1.1 million, but due to COVID-19 they lowered that amount to $750,000.
The budget designates $5,000 to travel, including plans to visit the Team KY and ETA conventions to build relationships and bring sports tourism to our area. Some of the funds will also go towards visiting other sports fields and complexes to help make better sports related decisions in McCracken County.
The budget also allocates $11,762 which will go towards insurance, supplies, memberships, and equipment. This includes memberships to the various team sports associations, registration with McCracken County, insurance, and bonds.
There is $266,650 allocated to contractual obligations and capital improvement. This includes funds for their yearly audit, court equipment for the Convention Center, design services, legal services, and marketing.
Within the contractual obligations and capital improvements, $52,650 was provided to the Convention Center for equipment. The Convention Center was initially supposed to purchase their own equipment, however due to COVID-19 they were unable to do so, which led to the Sports Tourism Commission stepping in and assisting them.
Dudley told West Kentucky Star, "Because of COVID they were a little low on revenue. Obviously not having the quilt show, not being able to have their events. We want to make sure that we've got everything in place to be able to bring in indoor sport tourism into the area as well, so we decided to help."
Additionally, $466,588 was set aside as contingency funds.
Dudley is hopeful about the future of sports tourism in McCracken County.
Dudley is hopeful about the future of sports tourism in McCracken County.
"We're working really hard to get some sports tourism in this area. We're going to see basketball and volleyball hopefully start in September as long as we're allowed to do that from the spectator standpoint." Dudley continued, "There's a lot of potential in this area location-wise, between being three hours from saint louis and two hours from Nashville. We have a great opportunity here to build something that's going to bring teams here."
"We're excited to be doing this, excited to be commissioners for this. We're taking our time to make sure we do it right."
