Record receipts

The Greater Chattanooga Sports & Events Committee announced Monday that sporting events in 2009 brought an estimated $25.1 million to the area.

That is a record total, breaking the $23.8 million in 2005, and occurred despite last month’s NCAA Football Championship bringing in $919,250, the smallest amount since the event came here in 1997. The Head of the Hooch rowing regatta in November brought in the highest economic impact at $4.3 million, while the National Softball Association’s Girls Class “A” Fast Pitch World Series in July was next at $3.56 million.

The FCS title game between Montana and Villanova ranked fifth last year in terms of economic impact.

“Considering this was an off year for out-of-town attendance at the NCAA football championship, this is a pretty impressive number,” Sports Committee board chairman Jim Kennedy said. “It proves that Chattanooga continues to grow in stature as a showcase for amateur athletics.”

The Athletic Championships Cheerleading, which brought in $1.296 million last January, and the Head of the Hooch have been held here since 2001 and ’05, respectively. They were lured by the Chattanooga Convention and Visitors Bureau, which oversees the Sports Committee, but are considered sporting events and are included annually on the Sports Committee calendar.

One event that clearly tanked was the NCAA women’s basketball tournament last March. Three early-round contests involving Purdue, North Carolina, Charlotte and Central Florida brought in $300,600, which ranked 20th on the Sports Committee’s chart.

“For a year or two, we had sort of been looking to this past year as a possible record-breaker, just knowing we had the Southern Conference and NCAA basketball tournaments,” committee president Scott Smith said. “Any time you have the NSA coming in, you know that could be a record-breaking type of year. I actually would have been more surprised if we didn’t.”

The record economic impact countered what was a triple whammy of bad news for the Sports Committee in ’09.

In March, the NCAA dealt the four women’s basketball teams with limited to no local interest to McKenzie Arena. In July, the TSSAA decided keep the Spring Fling in Murfreesboro despite an attractive package by the committee that included AT&T Field as its baseball championship venue. And in December, Montana and Villanova combined to bring fewer than 4,000 fans.

“The women’s basketball was super frustrating as far as the teams,” Smith said. “It’s like we were being punished or something. The Spring Fling was frustrating in that we really thought we had a shot, but at the same time, I didn’t expect them to move from the middle of the state after Murfreesboro lost the football to Cookeville.

“Considering the weather and the teams thrown at us, I thought the FCS game turned out pretty good.”

Smith became committee president last April, when predecessor Merrill Eckstein left to become Finley Stadium’s executive director. First up on his agenda was reducing the Sports Committee’s $60,000 loss from the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Committee officials were hoping to land Tennessee, Vanderbilt or Auburn, but NCAA women’s basketball championship director Michelle Perry said, “North Carolina was a three seed and Vanderbilt was a four seed, so North Carolina came first in the pecking order and Chattanooga happened to be closest to North Carolina.” Auburn was a two seed and got sent to New Jersey.

After Smith complained that the four teams handcuffed the committee, the NCAA lopped off $10,032 from the $76,437 guarantee. It still resulted in a hit of $49,425, which surpassed a $29,000 setback for a 2007 Golden Gloves event at the Convention Center as the committee’s largest loss since its formation in 1992.

The committee lost close to $13,000 for hosting the SoCon tournaments, which were hurt by Davidson’s men and UTC’s women losing in the semifinals. It received good news in April when the league knocked $75,000 off its $125,000 guarantee to host the 2011 tournaments after the committee agreed to move this year’s events to Charlotte.

“To have losses on events has been rare, but we had several in one year,” Smith said. “Every one of them was totally uncontrollable. I don’t know if that makes it more frustrating or less frustrating. I guess it’s better to have four women’s teams here with no local draw than to be totally off on your judgment or estimate of an event.

“Hopefully this doesn’t happen again for a while, but it is what it is and you just move on.”