Recently, there has been some publicity about the Estimated Economic Impact (EEI) that the NHL All Star Game provided the area. The number was in the $11 million range. This number is derived, primarily, from hotel room nights and prepared food purchases from out of the area guests. The All Star Game was a great event for the area and has received plaudits from many in this country and Canada! I congratulate the Hurricanes and all the volunteers etc. on a job well done!
CASL's main tournament series, The CASL visitraleigh.com National Soccer Series presented by Chelsea Football Club (yes, that is the full name, I'll go with The National Soccer Series to provide some brevity the rest of the way) occurs usually over 5 weekends in Novemeber and December annually. There are four weekends of play over those five weekends (there isn't an event Thanksgiving weekend). These weekend Shootouts and Showcases are for Classic level teams. The Shootout tournaments are for Under 10-14 ages with one weekend being a girls' weekend and the other a boys' weekend. The Showcase tournaments are for the High School age players (Under 15-19) and are watched by many college coaches, who are on the recruiting trail. The Boys' Showcase and the girls' Showcase occur on separate weekends.
Last year, 2010, there were a total of 1140 teams from 40+ states in the National Soccer Series weekends. The girls' Showcase attracted 440 teams (there were over 300 teams that couldn't be accepted due to lack of field and hotel room space). Over 650 women's college coaches came to watch the event.
On an annual basis, the CASL tournaments EEI is between $8-10 million. In 2008, CASL also hosted the USYS Southern Regionals, with the help of Wilson Youth Soccer and the City of Wilson, with 184 teams for the six day tournament. That year, the National Soccer Series in addition to the Regionals generated close to $14 million of Estimated Economic Impact.
We are pleased to, yearly, host these tournaments and, of course, always wish for good Southern weather during the events. This year had great weather until the next to last day of the girls' Showcase when we had that 4 inch snowfall on Saturday afternoon. There are many staff and volunteers that make these events an annual success and my hat is tipped to all of them!
Charlie Slagle
Any chance CASL could hire an off-duty police officer on these huge tournament weekends to help our visitors (and us) get out of WRAL? I've seen it done at tournaments in Charlotte and Winston-Salem recently and have been impressed by the thoughtfulness. Could we do the same?
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