Blytheville will get a chance to show off one of its best assets this weekend as 32 teams from Arkansas and Missouri converge on the Blytheville Youth Sportsplex to participate in the annual Sports Hall Thunder Bayou Blowout.
The tournament should be a much-needed shot in the arm for local retailers, from merchants to hotels and restaurants.
"We estimate $300 per family is spent on local tournaments and $1,000 per family on the state and regional tournaments," Farmers Bank president and Blytheville Baseball/Softball Boosters board member Randy Scott said. "However, this weekend, we have two to three teams traveling from far enough away to spend the weekend at the hotel, so those families will be spending closer to $1,000 per family."
He noted Southaven, Miss., which hosts its fair share of youth tournaments as well, uses a figure of $1,500 per family for all of its tournaments.
"If we used their calculations, it would equate to $1.84 million spent in Blytheville last year," Scott said. "We estimated $703,200 using our figures."
Using either figure should catch the eye of local retailers.
Interestingly, sales tax figures, for the most part, have risen each year of the Sportsplex's existence.
In June 2003, a 1-cent county sales tax generated $74,923.57, compared to $120,639.02 in June 2008 and $106,281.40 last June, according to county financial records.
In July 2003, a 1-cent county sales tax brought in $75,475.50, compared to $109,071.90 last July.
And, in August 2003, a 1-cent county sales tax produced $76,088, compared to $124,277.82 in August 2008 and $122,859.46 last August.
To be clear, those figures are county-wide, not just Blytheville.
But it seems only logical that the local tournaments have made a significant economic impact here.
If memory serves, the 2008 Cotton Classic was the last Little League Regional Blytheville hosted before the recession. There were several tournaments that drew visitors that year with the Cotton Classic bringing in teams from as far as Iowa, New Mexico and Texas (one year a team from Colorado was here as well).
The Sportsplex has hosted dozens of tournaments since its inception in 2002.
And there are no signs of that changing anytime soon.
The Sportsplex may not bring dollars directly into the city, but indirectly, it serves economic development.
Of course, without volunteers to run the programs and organize the tournaments, groundskeeper Larry Morris' works of art would be just well-manicured fields.
So guys like Randy Scott, Kenny Burge, Gale Wilf and numerous others deserve a lot of credit for keeping Blytheville on the baseball map.
The program has become one of Blytheville's best quality-of-life attractions.
As Scott has said during various presentations, the Sportsplex has a Mayberry feel on game nights, a real family-friendly atmosphere.
It's a place of escape for a couple of hours, where kids can be kids, fans can enjoy some good-natured competition and loved ones can cheer on their favorite ball players.
Turns out it also provides a source for economic growth.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com