The portable sports floor was on full display Tuesday at the Owensboro Convention Center. Officials on site said word is already starting to spread and several tournaments have been booked, and they have high hopes for the economic impact the sports floor will have for Owensboro-Daviess County.
The total cost for the project was $593,000. Owensboro Health contributed $300,000, while the City of Owensboro and Daviess County Fiscal Court each provided $150,000 as part of the public-private partnership on the project.
The project includes a modular, portable sports floor (which fits together like a puzzle-piece mat) along with all the necessary equipment for multiple indoor sporting events including volleyball, basketball, and futsal. It also includes three-tiered bleachers for fans.
The floor can be made into four basketball, nine volleyball, or futsal courts — or various combinations of those.
Chris Gendek, Destination Services Director for Visit Owensboro, said interest in futsal and volleyball tournaments has already taken off.
SportsTutor’s Bluegrass Futsal Cup was the first event to be held on the multi-purpose sports floor in December. Last weekend, Audubon Volleyball Association (AVA) hosted the first volleyball tournament on the floor.
Owensboro Volleyball Club is hosting an AAU super regional national qualifier the second weekend of May, while the Apollo High School Summer Slam and Kentucky Wesleyan College Invitational volleyball tournaments will take place later this year.
“You have obviously local teams coming now hosting these events,” Gendek said. “Once those take place, that word will start getting out about the atmosphere, how the court plays, what it looks like, and just everything that goes into that event and how smooth it is to run an event here. I don’t think it’ll be hard to get that word out as we continue to have more events.”
Gendek said the Convention Center is “really close” to having a basketball tournament coming on Memorial Day weekend.
“It’s really hard to tell people what it’s going to look like or replicate that atmosphere, until you actually have people playing on the court, running on the court, jumping on the court,” Gendek said. “Once we get that, I don’t think it’s gonna be hard for people to come and find out how fantastic this is.”
Gendek also said that there’s also a bigger picture to keep in mind when discussing the value of the floor.
“It’s obviously a greater impact than just having a sports tournament in the community,” he said. “You’re going to have people staying in our hotels, buying gas, eating in our restaurants, shopping at the local boutiques. You’re going to have people just everywhere, turning those dollars over into the community just generating a large economic impact. And in turn, what does that do? That provides more jobs for local people. The goal is to have a sports tournament but also create an economic impact that benefits Owensboro and the local residents.”
Jamie Scheffer, Interim General Manager at the Owensboro Convention Center, echoed those sentiments, saying they want to do whatever they can to bring people to Owensboro-Daviess County and help boost the economy.
“We’re looking to book every single weekend,” Scheffer said. “We have a saying here and that’s ‘be afraid of the dark.’ And so we don’t want a single dark weekend. If we can fill that up with conventions, great. If we could fill it up with outside sporting tournaments, then we’re gonna pursue that.”
