Triple Crown Border Wars Four

We all complain about how our tax dollars are spent and the reason why most of the time is you can’t see for ourselves what we get for those dollars. This weekend if you happen to go by the sports complex and since it has been open something is going on there every weekend and this weekend is a doozy.

120 little league teams will be converging on Rocky Mount. . One hundred twenty teams! There are so many teams in this weekends event that every field in the sports complex plus Stith Talbert Park and Grover Lucas fields are being used .

Every motel is filled up all the way to Wilson. Talked to Joel Dunn who is in charge of the sports complex and he told me that this weekend is the biggest tournament that the complex has hosted. 45 teams are from out of state including Virginia , Maryland and Illinois. Let’s just say for conversation that 100 teams will be staying the night. That’s 4,000 people here for two days eating, sleeping and buying from local merchants.

Let’s see if we can play a guessing game. If 2.8 people come with every player and those 2.8 people eat and buy $100 worth of food. That works out to At least $150,000 just from the 100 teams eating for two days.. That does not include the other 20 who probably go home each night and come back the next day.

All of those people staying will probably go to a movie or the mall and just say spend $20.00 on entertainment or shopping. That’s another $30,000 taxable monies. Have you checked the price of motels lately? Four people per room at $50.00 per night and you have 1000 rooms booked there’s another $50,000 taxable money. My guess would be I am very conservative on the spending. There is potential for at least $230,000 spent money coming to Rocky Mount this weekend.

I think the city has done a great job of having something going on at the complex on weekends from April through October. I know certain tournaments draw better than others but just think if the average weekend for 26 weekends brings in $150,000. That’s 3.9 Million dollars per year income for our area just from the sports complex.

All of this that we are talking about is weekends. Monday through Friday all the fields have softball and and regular season baseball going on. Last fall the soccer portion was opened that added to the draw of people using the complex.

Last Friday night when the Relay For Life was going on at the football stadium and all the sports complex had their games going people had to park all the way to the YMCA. Don’t try to tell me you can’t have fun unless drugs and alcohol are involved. About 10,000 people who were either at the ball games or the Relay can tell you different.

There is one job that I would want no part of this weekend. Who is going to be the person that keeps up with the brackets as each game is played and what field the winner and loser plays on next?


It surly seems the money spent on the sports complex is paying for itself, both money wise and enjoyment.