Competition at this level brings family and fans to town from not only around the county but around the country, and State College is ready, according to Eric Engelbarts of the Happy Valley Sports and Entertainment Alliance. The last ticket sales estimate he knew was over 10,000 series tickets sold. His office uses that information in an event impact calculator to estimate the economic impact on the Centre County region.
“We input how many people we anticipate coming into town and any of the other factors that we can input into the system and then it gives us an estimated economic impact number,” Engelbarts explains. “We have a direct visitor spend of $4.9 million and the indirect, or induced, is just over $2 million. What we’re anticipating for the total economic impact for the Olympic Trials is just a touch over $7 million.”
He says hotels are filling and his office is working with USA Wrestling, which administers the event, to book blocks of rooms for staff, athletes, and media. “They’re filling up quite a few properties and when you add in the additional mom, dad, grandma, grandpa coming in to watch their athlete compete, we’ll be at a near sell-out probably for two if not three nights,”