Youth sports are “economy-proof,” so Hampton Roads cities invest in major athletic centers

It’s Saturday.

For Tony Sanchious, that means spending the day in the bleachers watching his 17-year-old daughter, Catalina, fly around a racing track a couple hundred miles from their home in Northern Virginia.

“Every weekend we’re either in Virginia Beach or we’re in New York or we’re in Philadelphia,” Sanchious said as the starting gun signaled the start of the next race.

His daughter is an elite runner — Catalina Sanchious is a two-time Virginia high school track champion and competed in the U.S Under-20 Olympic trials earlier this year — so the Sanchious family probably travels more than most.

But hundreds more pack the bleachers of Virginia Beach’s state-of-the-art Oceanfront Sports Center this Saturday. Plenty are from local high schools but many are from out of town.

Sanchious estimates they spend somewhere around $1,500 per weekend trip on hotels, gas and meals like the one he and his wife had at a Virginia Beach seafood restaurant they found the previous night — and had already forgotten the name of.“We never get to do a vacation. So we look at these as mini-vacations,” he said.

But Sanchious said he wouldn’t dream of pulling back.

“We’re like every other family. We want to support our kids. We want to give them the opportunity to demonstrate their skills,” he said as another set of runners lined up for the next heat. “I would give up the cable TV before I would stop coming here. I would cancel a subscription before I would not come here.”

That’s exactly what tourism officials across Hampton Roads want to hear.

Communities like Virginia Beach and Hampton have shelled out tens of millions of dollars to build facilities meant to attract people like Sanchious — ideally, every week of the year.

And several more localities are jumping on the bandwagon because there’s a lot of money to be made.

Amateur sports tourism generated $128 billion in economic activity across the nation in 2023, according to a study from the Sports Events and Tourism Association. That translated to more than $20 billion in tax revenue.

That 2023 study found a nearly 10% annual growth in travel for amateur sports in 2022, followed by another 7% in 2023, surging past pre-pandemic figures.

Communities around the nation are racing to satisfy the growing demand with bigger and more luxurious sports facilities, but some worry about overcrowding the market.

Turning sports travel into tourism

The Sports Center in Virginia Beach where Sanchious’ daughter was racing that Saturday opened in 2020 and cost $68 million to build. It can host a wide array of sports, including basketball, volleyball and more beyond track meets.

The facility got off to a rocky start.

But despite a couple of years of steep operating costs the city attributed to the pandemic and spending millions to buy out the previous operator’s contract last year, Virginia Beach Tourism Director Nancy Helman said the facility is paying off.

“As a tourism generator for the city of Virginia Beach, our number one goal is to create economic impact for the city, and that happens when we have out of town guests come to our city to stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, shop in our shops, and leave their out-of-town dollars in our city,” Helman said.

The city expected visitors to spend around 30,000 nights in local hotels when they were preparing to open the Sports Center. Now, they’re “well over 60,000,” Helman said. That alone translates to millions of dollars of activity.

It’s attraced some big-name events too. It hosted NCAA Division III Indoor Track Championships starting in 2023, with committments through 2026. The city announced Dec. 19 the NCAA had signed on for 2028 as well.

And after the city cut ties with the center’s previous operator, the facility turned a profit the second half of last fiscal year. The city brought on a new permanent operator — at a lower cost — last month.

Helman said the Sports Center’s success is in part due to decades of experience in sports tourism and relationships the city’s built. But the placement is also a draw for families weighing which events to attend around the country.

“This building was designed and located for a very, very specific reason. It’s six blocks from the Oceanfront. We have the ability to sell Virginia Beach as a destination, not just a facility,” Helman said.

Academics have even coined the term “tourn-acation” to describe how families increasingly turn travel sports trips for their children into full-on tourist explorations.

Helman said that little taste of the resort area can lure families to come back for a full vacation, netting return customers.

“Those parents will find a way to do it”

While Virginia Beach is known for its huge tourism industry other cities have also spent big to get into the growing youth sports market.

In Hampton, one of the biggest draws when it built its $29.5 million Aquaplex swimming center was just how hardcore traveling sports families are.

“Youth sports is nearly economy-proof. It is a market segment that has stood the test of sequestration, COVID, all sorts of economical downturns,” said Mary Fugere, who runs Hampton’s Convention and Visitor Bureau.

The thinking is, unlike other investments the city could make, something like the Aquaplex will continue to provide revenue even when families would be cutting out a beach vacation or trip to a theme park when money’s tight.

“When they have a child involved in youth sports, those parents will travel. Those parents will find a way to do it. Regardless of shortcomings in their budget, they’ll find a way for their child to compete,” Fugere said.

Fugere said because of the scale and resources of the Aquaplex, it’s hosting swim meets put on by groups from as far as New Jersey, as well as NCAA conference championships and USA Swimming’s Artistic Swimming National Championship.

After two years, Fugere said the Aquaplex is in a great position to draw even more high-profile events.

That’s not Hampton’s only play in the youth sports space.

Long before the Aquaplex was even up for discussion, Hampton was already drawing in young leagues with the Boo Williams Sportsplex, a facility named for youth basketball guru and Hampton native Boo Williams. AAU basketball competitions have come to Hampton since the early 1990s. The current facility was built in 2008 and taken over by the city in 2017.

But Fugere said bookings there are down as new facilities like Virginia Beach’s Sports Center are popping up.

“I wish that we didn’t have that competition, frankly, because it’s going to be challenging,” Fugere said. “I don’t know when we’ll hit saturation, I hope it happens later, rather than sooner, with these new additions.”

And right up the road from Hampton, another competitor is looming.

New facilities, new niches

Williamsburg, James City County and York County joined forces to develop their own monster indoor sports facility.

The three localities broke ground on an $80-million project this summer next door to Colonial Williamsburg — another effort to blend youth sports visitors and existing tourism.

The 200,000 square-foot facility is projected to open in 2026 with dozens of basketball, volleyball and pickleball courts, a climbing wall and other features.

A 2021 consultant’s report estimated such a facility would generate somewhere between $10 and $15 million in direct spending, which translates to somewhere around $1 million in tax revenue for the area, though some local residents criticized the project and taxes preemptively implemented to fund it.

A different 2021 consultants presentation estimates 557,000 visitors to the center annually, 42% of which would be from outside the Historic Triangle. It also projects an annual operating revenue shortfall of nearly half a million dollars.

Norfolk is also considering the possibility of its own youth sports center, though their idea is in its infancy.

Economic Development Director Sean Washington told the city council at a November retreat that the city is looking for which sports aren’t already being catered to in Hampton Roads.

“Ice. Figure skating and ice hockey,” Washington said. “If there is a hole that is identified, that is the one that exists.”

That could become the new vision for the Military Circle area after the city failed to get the kind of development proposals it wanted for redevelopment there.

Helman from Virginia Beach shrugged off concerns about direct competitors.

“We’re finding that there’s enough business for all of us to be successful and to go around,” she said. “There’s room for everybody in this game and so we’re excited to see our partners grow and shine and bring additional light into the region.”