Study: Bassmaster tournament made millions for St. Lawrence County
Waddington before the August, 2013 tournament. Photo: David Sommerstein
A news study conducted by six Clarkson University MBA students finds that this August’s Bassmaster Elite Series Tournament in Waddington likely brought in between $1.3 million and $3.38 million to the area. Here’s Clarkson’s press release on the study. According to the study, 96 percent of that total was from American visitors, four percent from Canadians, but the Canadians spent more on average ($58.40) than the Americans ($41.58).
St. Lawrence County contributed $75,000 to help host the event, and St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Pat McKeown says it’s good to know that investment paid off (from the press release): “As a result of the Clarkson team’s work, we learned that the return to St. Lawrence County was more than 15 times the investment. Those are great numbers!”
According to County Administrator Karen St. Hilaire (via the Watertown Daily Times), the tournament needed to generate about $2.5 million to recoup that investment — but she says the county estimates “it was closer to $3 million.”
The tournament broke attendance records with 34,000 people converging on Waddington (town pop. 2,266, village pop. 972 according to the 2010 census) to stay, eat, shop, fill their cars with gas, and of course fish. Much more detail in the press release on how that breaks down (they spent the most on non-fishing-related shopping) and how the study was conducted.
Meanwhile, the study reminds us that summer, and fishing, still exist, as we enter into our long North Country winter. So yay for that!
If it was only $1.3 million, on the low end of the estimate, didn’t the county lose money?
I don’t get it either. The county spent 75K but they needed 2.5 million to recoup their investment? How is that? There was 2.425 million in indirect spending by the county for this event? Is that accurate?
Why are you reporting on a survey done by some MBA students at Clarkson. When I was getting my MBA you probably didn’t want to count on our data!
Oh. This wasn’t about bass guitars, then.
Let’s take the few remaining dams out of the Grasse River and restock the once famous salmon. Pulaski has a fantastic fishing event a couple times a year, and there’s no reason that couldn’t be duplicated in Massena, Madrid, Canton, and maybe even Russell.
bass turds