Next Level Sports Marketing

For two Tuscaloosa organizations, 2008 was a very good year.

The Tuscaloosa Sports Foundation and the Tuscaloosa Conventions and Visitors Bureau received national recognition for their sports-events planning. Both were listed in SportsEvents Magazine’s feature “50+ Sports Planners and Places to Watch in 2009.”

Talty O’Connor, founder and publisher of Sports Events, said readers nominated the organizations.

“We take those nominations and use our editorial advisory board and put it all into the pot and see what surfaces to the top,” he said. “And Tuscaloosa did it.”

O’Connor said Tuscaloosa held several well put-together sporting events, including the U.S. Olympic triathlon trails in April.

“It’s been a big year for T-town,” he said. “A very successful year.”

Despite a gloomy outlook, the recognition will help create business for Tuscaloosa, he said.

“[Sports-events planning] is a market that doesn’t know there’s an economic recession going on.

“One thing that Tuscaloosa has done is [it] has really begun to build an identity as a sports destination. The way you do that is put on good events.”

Don Staley, executive director of Tuscaloosa Sports Foundation, said the recognition will bring attention to the Tuscaloosa area and what it has to offer.

“[The recognition] gives us exposure nationally in a publication and when planners start looking at events in Tuscaloosa, they will continue to look positively on Tuscaloosa,” he said.

Staley, who resigned in November 2007 after 14 years as head soccer coach at the University of Alabama, credits the foundation’s recognition to its involvement in “nontraditional sporting events,” including a water skiing event in Duncanville, the Warrior baseball tournament in Kentuck Park and the foundation’s association with Olympic gold medal boxer Deontay Wilder.

“Anytime you can bring people into your town and show them the great things you have to offer, it’s a win-win situation,” he said.

Stephanie Roberts, director of sports marketing for the Tuscaloosa Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the recognition from SportsEvents will allow them to bring the triathlon trials back to Tuscaloosa for the next four years, which would not have been the case beforehand, she said.

The two Tuscaloosa organizations were two of four recognized in Alabama. The Alabama Gulf Coast Sports Commission and the Greater Birmingham CVB & Sports Marketing were also on the list of places to watch around the country. Altogether, 41 organizations across the nation were recognized, according to SportsEvents Magazine’s Web site.