An understanding of tournament economic impact begins with an exploration of who travels to attend the tournament. Because these are youth athletic tournaments, each athlete is typically accompanied by at least a parent. In fact, 66 percent of family groups have two parents, 50 percent have one or more siblings (not participating in the tournaments), 16 percent have one or more grandparents and 14 percent have other relatives or adults who accompany them. All in, the typical tournament athlete brings an additional 2.14 people with them. Table 1 shows that each tournament alone attracts 445 men, women and children.

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Table One

Tournament Attendance of a 4 Day Baseball Event
Combined#
Total Number of Teams16
Average Number of Athletes per Team13
Total Number of Competing Atheletes208
Average # of People Accompanying Each Athelete2.14
Total Number of Athletes (rounded)445

These tournaments cater to “travel” teams, and indeed the majority of participants and families do travel from outside of the Fulton County area to attend. Table 2 shows that more than 80 percent of attendees travel from outside the area to attend the tournaments.

Table Two

Geographic Distribution of Participants
Overall
Fulton County8.8%
Capital District9.8%
Western Massachusetts, CT, PA11.1%
Other NYS Regions49.9%
Other States20.4%

With 91.2 percent of all attendees traveling from outside of the Fulton County area and 81.4 percent traveling from outside the Capital District region, this would mean that these tournaments over a 9 week span (first week of July through Labor Day) bring 4000 people to the Fulton County area, all but 744 of whom are from outside the Capital Region.