Pigeon
Forge, TN – June 2016 / Newsmaker Alert / The first three months
of youth baseball tournaments at the Ripken
Experience Pigeon Forge have been everything the city expected – and
perhaps more.
“Baseball lives on statistics,
and the numbers coming out of the Ripken Experience are awesome. Visitor
spending of $6.7 million in Pigeon Forge is simply wonderful,” said Eric
Brackins, Pigeon Forge assistant city manager, who worked closely on development
of the $22.5 million project.
Cal Ripken Jr., a member
of the Baseball Hall of Fame and chairman and founder of Ripken Baseball,
cut the ribbon on the six-field complex on March 9. The first tournament
was March 12-13. Ripken Baseball has a 10-year contract to manage the facility.
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From mid-March through the
third week of June, there have been 11 tournaments that drew 363 teams
from 23 states. The Alaska Quakes from Anchorage traveled the greatest
distance to play on the fields that offer unobstructed views of the Great
Smoky Mountains.
“The 363 teams and their
followers, almost 18,000 people, benefit Pigeon Forge in many ways. They
stay in our hotels, they dine in our restaurants and they have fun at our
attractions and theaters,” Brackins said, noting that tournament scheduling
gives them plenty of recreational time.
The appeal of Pigeon Forge
as a family vacation destination was a major reason the city built the
complex and contracted with Ripken Baseball to operate it.
“We were confident Ripken
Baseball could attract teams, and we were equally confident Pigeon Forge
would appeal to the players’ families. We’re attracting new people to Pigeon
Forge and the Smokies, and we know that new visitors are almost certain
to return for future vacations,” said Leon Downey, executive director of
the Pigeon Forge Department of
Tourism.
The Southeast, the Midwest
and the Mid-Atlantic produced the greatest number of teams in the first
three months. There were 144 teams from Tennessee, 43 from Georgia, 37
from North Carolina and 24 from Ohio.
In addition to Alaska, other
distant states that produced teams included Wisconsin, Texas and Massachusetts.
A tournament with 44 teams
from 16 states and Canada in the last days of June will push the team total
to more than 400.
The Ripken Experience Pigeon
Forge is on a ridge above Pigeon Forge. Each field borrows its design from
well-known professional ballparks, including Oriole Park at Camden Yards
in Baltimore.
The others are Calfee Park
in Pulaski, Va., the oldest park in the Appalachian League; Fluor Field
in Greenville, S.C., known as “Little Fenway”; Engle Stadium in Chattanooga,
Tenn., a filming location for the “42” movie about Jackie Robinson; BB&T
Ballpark in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Isotopes Park in Albuquerque, N.M.
The Ripken Experience Pigeon
Forge will host tournaments nine months out of the year and offer year-round
branded events in its 14,000-square-foot clubhouse.
Visitor information about
Pigeon Forge is available online at MyPigeonForge.com
and toll-free at 800-251-9100.
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Contact:
Tom
Adkinson, APR
for Pigeon Forge Department
of Tourism
615-341-8796 |