Another round of Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund winners have been announced

Five facilities throughout Delaware are winners in the latest round of Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund awards.

All three counties are represented, and the Delaware Tourism Office awarded $10 million in total.

Kirkwood Sports Complex in New Castle at $4 million and the Bethany Tennis Club in Ocean View at $3.8 million were the biggest awardees.

Hudson Fields in Milton will receive over $1.1 million while Factory Sports in Frankford at $577,000 and Dover Motor Speedway at $500,000 round out the winners for this latest round.

Jessica Welch is the Delaware Tourism Office Director, and she says this round was very competitive.

“We received seventeen applications requesting $47 million. So it was another very competitive process. So the review panel met twice to talk through the applications and to kind of narrow down the list until we got down to our final five,” said Welch.

The funds will go towards new basketball courts, pickleball courts, volleyball courts, installing turf soccer fields, upgrading current playing fields, indoor tennis and pickleball courts, elevator upgrades, adding lights, and parking.

Welch explains a key factor in picking these facilities.

“We want to see that these facilities are making the investment, that they are putting the money back into the facility, and also that they have match funding,” said Welch. “That was an issue that kind of popped up with a couple of the applicants. We really need to make sure that these applications and these facilities have some skin in the game. And so we want to make sure that they’re putting money into it that they can match the state funds with. We don’t want these to be projects that are fully funded by the state.”

Welch is hopeful the Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund will continue in 2025.