2008 was the year of sports in Omaha, and the direct economic impact to the City of Omaha and State of Nebraska from the three athletic events sponsored by the Omaha Sports Commission (OSC) is estimated at $29,340,000. Two of the state’s leading economists – Dr. Ernie Goss of Creighton University and Dr. Eric Thompson of the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—conducted a study of the economic impact of the NCAA Men’s Division 1 First and Second Round Basketball Tournament, U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming, and NCAA Division 1 Women’s Volleyball Championships.

The Olympic Swim Trials also provided the City of Omaha an additional $97 million in national/international media exposure from coverage of the Olympic Swim Trials in Omaha ($23.9 million), and media exposure of Omaha during the Beijing Olympics ($73.8 million).

Key study findings of each sporting event include the following.
Olympic Swim Trials (Eight-Day Event)
• More than 95,000 tickets were sold to out-of-state visitors, who came from an estimated 36 states and seven foreign countries.
• Swim Trials fans spent more than $6.9 million on lodging, food and beverages.
• The Olympic Swim Trials generated more than $1.3 million in state and local tax collections.

NCAA Regional Basketball Tournament (Two-Day Event)
• More than 21,000 tickets were sold to out-of-state visitors.
• Basketball fans spent more than $1.1 million on lodging, food and beverages.
• More than $256,000 was collected in state and local taxes.

NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship (Two-Day Event)
• More than 2,600 tickets were sold to out-of-state visitors.
• Volleyball fans spent nearly $440,000 on lodging, food and beverages.
• Nearly $184,000 was collected in state and local taxes.

Harley Schrager, chairman of the Omaha Sports Commission board of directors, said the economic impact figures demonstrate the important role the OSC plays in supporting Omaha and the State of Nebraska.

“2008 was a great year for sports in Omaha and has elevated our city to a new and higher level of national prominence when it comes to hosting great sporting events,” Schrager said. “The OSC has worked very hard to make Omaha one of America’s leading amateur sports cities, and we are proud of the numerous contributions we have made to the local and state economies.”

“While the direct economic impacts of the amateur sporting events that we examined were quite impressive, the spillover or indirect impacts were even more noteworthy once again putting Omaha in the national spotlight. I expect these impacts to grow in future years as the city’s support businesses expand to meet the rising demand,” Dr. Goss said.
“The surge in spending at area restaurants, stores and hotels during these three events was an important contribution to the local businesses,” Dr. Thompson said.

Harold Cliff, president of the Omaha Sports Commission, said the tremendous media exposure Omaha received in 2008 was almost as valuable as the direct economic benefits to the city and state.

“The Olympic Swim Trials was broadcast live on NBC four nights and the USA Network an additional four nights, and Omaha’s name was prominently mentioned throughout the Beijing Olympic coverage,” Cliff said. “In addition, NCAA basketball games were carried live on CBS and the NCAA volleyball championships were live on ESPN. The national and international media exposure Omaha received in 2008 will pay numerous dividends to our city for years to come.”

Cliff noted the report does not include the economic impact to Omaha of the annual NCAA College World Series. That event is not sponsored by the Omaha Sports Commission.

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• superior organization of and attendance at the event
• a superior experience for the competitors and/or spectators at the event
• how the site or venue served to enhance the event.

Eligible events occurred between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008.

“We are pleased to recognize these superior sporting events. Each of the winners is a prime example of achieving excellence in organization and management for both competitors and spectators,” said Timothy Schneider, publisher of SportsTravel magazine, which organizes the annual TEAMS Conference & Expo. 

“The SportsTravel Awards program is an opportunity for our readers to honor their peers for a job well done,” said Schneider. “SportsTravel readers are the leaders of the sports-event industry, and they really know what it takes to execute high-quality athletic events. These awards reflect their expert evaluation of what makes events superior.” 

The ballot included nominees at the amateur, collegiate and professional levels in three categories each. Each event’s host city was also acknowledged during the awards ceremony.

The 2008 SportsTravel Award winners are:

Sports Event of the Year
2008 U.S. Open Golf Championship, La Jolla, CA

Best New Sports Event
2008 Ultimate Boarder, Lake Tahoe, CA & Ventura, CA

Best Professional Sports Event Series or Circuit
2007 NFL NFC Championship Playoff Series, Multiple Host Cities

Best Professional Multi-Sport or Multi-Discipline Event
2008 ESPN Winter X Games, Aspen, CO

Best Professional Single-Sport Event
2008 U.S. Open Golf Championship, La Jolla, CA

Best Collegiate Sports Event Series or Circuit
2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championships, San Antonio, TX

Best Collegiate Multi-Sport or Multi-Discipline Event
2008 NCAA Division I Women’s Gymnastics Championships, Athens, GA

Best Collegiate Single-Sport Event
2008 BCS National Championship Game (LSU vs. Ohio State), New Orleans, LA

Best Amateur Sports Event Series or Circuit
2008 USA Softball KFC Bound 4 Beijing Tour, Multiple Host Cities

Best Amateur Multi-Sport or Multi-Discipline Event
2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming, Omaha, NE

Best Amateur Single-Sport Event
2008 Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, Oklahoma City, OK

The TEAMS Conference & Expo is the world’s largest annual gathering for the sports-event and sports-related travel industry. TEAMS 2009 will be held October 13-17, 2009, in New Orleans. For more information, please visit TEAMSconference.com.

TEAMS and SportsTravel magazine are owned by Schneider Publishing Company, Inc., the Los Angeles-based company that also publishes Association News magazine. The group travel markets served by Schneider Publishing Company generate 106 million room nights annually. For further information, please call toll-free (877) 577-3700.

Harold Cliff came to Omaha for 18 months but now will be staying for at least 36 more.

The chief operating officer for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials has been named president of the Omaha Sports Commission. Cliff recently returned from the Summer Olympics in Beijing and officially takes over Monday.

Cliff, under contract for the U.S. Trials until October, was approached for the Omaha Sports Commission position after Dan Morrissey resigned last month.

“To be honest, there’s so much potential here that’s untapped,” Cliff said. “There are a lot of things we’d like to do.”

Cliff said he signed a three-year contract that included options for renewals at various times. Omaha Sports Commission Chairman Harley Schrager said the executive board stopped short of seeking applicants for the position when mutual interest developed.

Morrissey has been the only president of the Omaha Sports Commission since its establishment in 2003. Under his watch, and in conjunction with completion of Qwest Center Omaha, the city has drawn the U.S. Trials, NCAA basketball and two NCAA volleyball final fours.

One of Cliff’s first priorities will be trying to secure the 2012 U.S. Trials for Omaha.

“Not all of that is in our hands, as you can appreciate, such as pool sponsorship and dates the coaches want,” he said. “But one of our major goals is to bring that back into town.”

Cliff, 57, has a host of international contacts from 30 years of sports and event management. He admits that he will have to start from scratch with the NCAA.

“But the city has great resources with people who have great contacts, established contacts (with the NCAA),” Cliff said, pointing to the roles Creighton, UNO and Nebraska play in executing bids for events. “We’ll establish good working relationships with those institutions.”

Schrager said Omaha’s contacts with the NCAA are longstanding and well-established.

“I don’t think they’re reliant on any one individual,” Schrager said. “I think they know Omaha is willing and capable of staging events.”

Cliff worked closely the past year with Schrager, who also was chairman of the 2008 U.S. Trials. Schrager said Cliff can strengthen Omaha’s reputation as a major player among cities competing for amateur sports events.

“It’s not often you run across a skilled professional like Harold with the kind of experience he’s had around the globe staging events,” Schrager said. “It has primarily been swimming events, but after watching him over a long time operate and manage the Trials, you see that he would be able to do that with any sport.”

Cliff managed the swimming World Championships in both 2007 (Melbourne) and 2005 (Montreal), and was a consultant for a number of other international events. His 12 years with Swimming Canada included the final seven as CEO.

As OSC president, Cliff first will take inventory of the city’s facilities and resources, then an inventory of who runs what. Another focus will be on community-based sports and being in closer contact with the amateur sports groups to gauge what they would prefer to see come to Omaha.

Cliff also would like to see Omaha not just bid for events but “do the spade work” to initiate activities, such as creating invitationals.

The Canadian will maintain his residence in Omaha and commute, on occasion, to his home in Ottawa. Cliff had opportunities to stay in places such as Melbourne after finishing temporary jobs, but said he never felt as strongly as he does about Omaha.

“It’s one of those communities that really grows on you,” he said. “It’s a special place.”

State Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha was behind getting $250,000 for the U.S. Olympic Trials, so few on Wednesday might have taken as much satisfaction on seeing one pool completed and another started inside Qwest Center Omaha.

News media members were invited Wednesday to see the progress inside the Qwest Center for the first time since work began May 12.Ashford introduced LB 1052 last winter, which, when later passed by the Legislature, shifted money from the State Visitors Promotion Cash Fund to the city of Omaha for promotion of the 2008 Olympic Trials. Ashford said it was the first time there has been direct appropriations of that magnitude to an event, not a facility.

“I’m hoping in the next four to eight years we can attract additional events and the state will always be a partner,” Ashford said, standing about halfway between the filling of the warmup pool in the convention center and the framework of the competition pool in the arena.

News media members were invited Wednesday to see the progress inside the Qwest Center for the first time since work began May 12. Both pools will be completed before the four-day Mutual of Omaha Swimvitational starts June 5, to be followed by the Olympic Trials on June 29 through July 6.

Starting in 1993 with the state’s investment in renovation of Civic Auditorium, Ashford said there has been a slow-growing awareness that funds for events facilities would only benefit the state. He pointed to the Qwest Center as well as convention centers in Lincoln and Grand Island.He said that likely helped get LB 1052 passed.

“This event is clearly in the line of appropriations that the state has made into making Nebraska an events-centric state,” Ashford said. “Because we’re not gaining population, we have to find new ways to bring people into the state, and events such as this are clearly consistent with that mission and that vision. And the state has, and I predict will continue, to invest in these facilities and these events.”

Dan Morrissey, president of the Omaha Sports Commission, said the $250,000 goes toward “budget relief in general” for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Ashford said those behind the Olympic Trials — Morrissey, chief operating officer Harold Cliff, chairman Harley Schrager and others — “came down to Lincoln and really sold my colleagues in the state Legislature on the idea of this meet and this event as being a significant contributor to our economy.” The impact will include an estimated 10,000 people coming to Omaha for the Olympic Trials and accounting for more than 20,000 hotel nights.

Ashford also said the Department of Economic Development also has been helpful in other kinds of assistance.

“This is not a passive investment,” Ashford said. “This is an active involvement by the Department of Economic Development and the governor in making this happen. In some states, one would think, ‘Well, big deal.’ But in Nebraska, it’s taken us 15 years — and the building of the Qwest Center, I guess — to get to the point where our Legislature and the governor are looking at these kinds of events and these kind of facilities as being economic engines. It’s part of economic development.”

Workers from Myrtha Pools and DWR Construction had the Omaha Fire Department pumping the first of a million gallons into the warmup pool in Exhibit Hall A on Wednesday. The framework inside the arena gave the first glimpse of how the 50-meter pool would fit in the venue best known for housing Creighton basketball, UNO hockey and concerts.

“For many months, all of us have been asked how we are going to put a swimming pool — two swimming pools, Olympic-sized — in the Qwest Center,” Schrager said. “Now you see first-hand the marvel of this temporary construction.”

A late addition to the arena pool was 12 truckloads of sand. Cliff said it would go 3 inches deep and fill the gaps between the steel strappings so they wouldn’t show once the blue matting was laid over it. Purely cosmetic.

“It’s all about TV,” Cliff said. “We weren’t going to do it at first.”

NOTES: Pool temperatures ultimately will be 80 degrees in the arena and 81 in the warmup pool. It had a long way to go Wednesday. “It’s a little cold right now,” said Trevor Tiffany, president of Myrtha Pools USA. “It’s about the same temperature as the North Sea in England.” . . . Mayor Fahey was among those taking part in a ceremonial panel signing on the arena pool. . . . News media credential requests have hit 230 for the Olympic Trials. . . . Organizers have scheduled a free June 28 open house for people wanting to see the pools and setup inside the Qwest Center.

Myrtha Pools of Italy provided the components for the Swim Trials competition pool, depicted in this artist’s rendering, and a warm-up pool that will be assembled starting Monday in the Qwest Center.Pacing and checking his watch like an expectant father, Harold Cliff waited for a special delivery outside the Qwest Center Omaha on Thursday morning.

Soon, six semitrailer trucks rumbled north on 10th Street past the chief operating officer of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials. The delivery? Pieces for two swimming pools that, when assembled, will hold a combined 2 million gallons of water.

Pool Facts 

• Manufacturer: Myrtha Pools of Italy
• Size: Arena pool is 50 meters long, 10 lanes wide, 3 meters deep, holds 1 million gallons of water and weighs approximately 8 million pounds. (The L-shape warm-up pool is larger.)
• Construction: Stainless steel sides and framework with laminated surface
• First use: 2008 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at Qwest Center Omaha
• Companion: pool An L-shaped warm-up pool
• Largest pieces: End walls, three segments covering 25 meters; 2-meter-wide stainless steel side panels
• Water supply: Pools will be filled by Omaha Fire Department
• Installation: Five to eight days before water is added
• Workers: Twenty from Myrtha Pools and DWR Construction, of California. “That’s a lot of pool,” Cliff said.

And it was a long journey. The panels, pipes and myriad boxes were shipped 5,000 miles from the Myrtha Pools factory in Genoa, Italy, to the back doors of the convention center.

Assembly of the competition and warm-up pool puzzles starts Monday, when 20 workers from Myrtha and California-based DWR Construction Inc. begin a run of 16-hour work shifts. Also involved will be Qwest Center employees and local electricians and plumbers.

The delivery – by ship, train and trailer – was carried out by Werner Enterprises and included a half-dozen containers, each weighing around 30,000 pounds.

“It’s just a real mixed bag of stuff,” said Craig Stoffel, Werner’s vice president for global logistics.

Cliff wouldn’t even hazard to guess how many pieces were in that mixed bag.

“Literally thousands – right down to the last bolt, right down to the broom and dustpan,” Cliff said. “We’re talking more than 200,000 bolts alone.”

The largest prefabricated pieces will be the three segments that make up each 25-meter end wall. The side walls come in 2-meter-wide stainless-steel panels.

Although the eight-day U.S. Olympic Swim Trials don’t start until June 29, both pools must be ready for the four-day Mutual of Omaha Swimvitational beginning June 5.

Cliff said it will take five to eight days to complete the warm-up pool in the convention center, not including fill time. The first work on the competition pool in the arena would be May 19, with completion expected by May 28.

The stress on the arena and convention center floors will be at least 8 million pounds each. Each pool requires about a million gallons of water.

Roger Dixon, executive director of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, has discussed weight matters with the engineers who worked with the Qwest Center architects.

“They came back and said that is a lot of weight going on the floor, but we’re not in any jeopardy of any damage,” Dixon said Thursday. “The biggest thing is if you would lose a panel and all the water leaked out, that wouldn’t be good. But these are well-constructed pools, so we’re not concerned about it.”

The Qwest Center will be home to the Police concert Wednesday and WWE Judgment Day on May 18 before the pool foundation is started inside the arena. Those will be the last major bookings until a run of late-July concerts, although the convention center will still hold some smaller events.

Dixon, however, said any Qwest Center losses resulting from the pools have been minimal through June and into July.

“We’re really not losing anything major that we’re aware of,” Dixon said. “Tom O’Gorman (MECA director of sales and marketing) stayed on top of it and we navigated everything we wanted to book and pushed them into July.”

Cliff said both of the pools already have been sold. As far as the buyers and where they go next, Cliff said that’s “kind of confidential” and is a Myrtha responsibility.

Maybe it will take until the Qwest Center Omaha pool fills, because nothing says different like a million gallons of water.

The last time Qwest Center Omaha hosted the NCAA volleyball tournament, 17,209 spectators saw Nebraska win the national championship. The final four returns to Omaha on Dec. 20.The U.S. Olympic Trials-Swimming sit right in the middle of a something-for-everybody sports year in Omaha. They promise world-class talent, major crowds and network television.

But in a stocked 2008 lineup for Omaha, it’s the event that hasn’t yet carved its niche. It lacks familiarity. It isn’t played with some kind of ball – big, small, brown, white or otherwise.

Did we mention the construction of a temporary pool and a million gallons of water? And the Olympic rings all over town?

“Coming to a community that isn’t renowned for swimming, and putting it in a very unique venue, you just have so many opportunities to say, ‘Wow,’” said Harold Cliff, chief operating officer for the Olympic Trials. “People have been to basketball games, and they’ve been to hockey games, and they’ve been to volleyball games – which the Qwest is great for – but they’ve never been there for a swimming event. So you have to really set a good stage for people to have a great experience and to come away saying, ‘That was fantastic.’”

The NCAA basketball tournament returns to Omaha for the first time in 30 years, but it is one of the more known and followed events annually. Plus, the Qwest Center already offers a steady diet of basketball.

“With basketball, baseball, volleyball . . . people know what to expect,” said Harley Schrager, chairman of the Omaha Sports Commission. “The swim community is rather small here, so the general public might not know what they’re in for. But I think it’ll be second to none in terms of excitement and exceptional performance.”

Several years of bidding, negotiating and courtship bear their fruits as the calendar flips to 2008 and Omaha prepares for a major run of events.

Forty-five swimmers will use the Olympic Trials as their springboard to the Beijing Olympics. NCAA baseball and volleyball national champions will be crowned. Two basketball teams will go from Omaha to the Sweet 16. One Nationwide Tour golfer will pocket a nice winner’s check.

In all, some 600,000-plus fans will pass through turnstiles to watch the five marquee events, with NBC, CBS, ESPN and Golf Channel trucks parked outside.

“We’re certainly gratified that things fell into place the way they did,” said Dan Morrissey, president of the Omaha Sports Commission, the organization behind landing the basketball, swimming and volleyball. “We put out a lot of bids. We’ll continue to put out a lot of bids, and you just hope more of them stick.

“We would love for every year to be like 2008. That would be the ideal.”

The CWS can remain the anchor at least through 2010, with a 20-year extension still in the negotiation stage. The Cox Classic is locked up until at least 2010. Omaha’s support will make it a consistent contender for volleyball final fours.

The NCAA basketball committee already has named sites for 2009 and 2010, with future bidding only becoming more competitive as more cities build quality arenas. The Olympic Trials only occur every four years, and Omaha had to withstand challenges from San Antonio and St. Paul, Minn., to host in 2008.

“Our goal is to go out and get more events like these,” Schrager said. “Now, will we ever get another year where we have NCAA basketball, the College World Series, swim trials and NCAA volleyball all at once? I think we will. Will it be 2009 or 2010? No.”

The national exposure for Omaha starts in March when the Qwest Center will be one of eight sites for first- and second-round NCAA basketball action. Omaha last hosted NCAA games in 1977 at the Civic Auditorium.

On Selection Sunday, Omahans who gobbled up tickets in a hurry last spring will watch with a stake in finding out which eight of the 65 teams start their Road to the Final Four on the banks of the Missouri River.

“I think people will get a big kick out of that,” said Kevin Sarver, a Creighton assistant athletic director who will serve as tournament manager. “It’ll be fun to kind of guess, ‘Who’s coming here?’ Even for us to say, ‘It would be nice to have this team or that team.”

“There’s only eight sites, and to have one of those eight is a big deal. I think people in Omaha and surrounding communities get that, and understand what a great opportunity the city has and what a great opportunity we have.”

As required by the NCAA, nine full-service hotels will be in use, one for each team and one for NCAA staff and news media. NCAA staff and at least one member of the basketball committee will be in Omaha for the games on March 20 and 22.

“We want them to leave here on Sunday the 23rd and say, ‘That’s how you do it,’” Sarver said. “Obviously we think we have a good chance of getting another one if things go well and there’s not too many fires that would cause them to reconsider.”

The impact of NCAA basketball on Omaha will hardly compare to the back-to-back summer punches landed by the College World Series and U.S. Olympic Trials, if for no other reason than duration.

The CWS runs 11 or 12 days, from June 14 to 24 or 25. The Olympic Trials then follow June 29 through July 6.

Together, they have the potential to draw close to a half-million fans. For the Olympic Trials – last held in Long Beach, Calif., in 2004 – the Omaha Sports Commission is projecting totals of 10,000 visitors to Omaha, 300 news media and 20,000 hotel nights.

“It’s just going to be a three-week buzz,” said Cliff, hired last summer to run the Olympic Trials. “I think people will be pretty exhausted at the end of that time. The merchants and the restaurants and the police department . . . for all the people involved, there will be no down time. So I think the community will be in for a bit of a breather come the first week of July.”

Cliff said the Olympic Trials aren’t trying to supplant the CWS as the anchor event in Omaha.

Far from it. They’re just coming to the table with something different to offer.

Finals will be held during every night session, with the top two in each event advancing to the Summer Olympics a few weeks later.

“It’s wonderful to be first and it’s great to be second, but the emotion of finishing third is devastating,” Cliff said. “This is the ultimate step in a person’s career. It’s hard to express without being through it or seeing it.

“I’m certainly aware of the fact that people view the CWS as being the showcase event in town, and it’s earned that right. What we’re going to try and project is an event that has a totally different look and feel, and level of athlete.”

The eight-week gap between the Olympic Trials and the Cox Classic will test the pool of volunteers in Omaha. Swimming is expected to need 450 to 500, while Scott Athy of the Cox Classic said the four-day golf tournament requires at least 1,000 but closer to 1,200.

The NCAA volleyball final four puts its 2008 tickets on sale Jan. 19. When it first came to Omaha in 2006, the final four set two single-match attendance records, including 17,209 for the championship.

Morrissey said a full plate was the vision of the Omaha Sports Commission when it was formed four years ago. In the process, he acknowledges that Omaha also must remember not to overdo it.

“There can be a burnout factor,” Morrissey said. “Even the folks at the Qwest Center have to say, ‘How many concerts in a year is enough?’ How many majors are enough? You don’t want to saturate the market.

“But, realistically speaking, I don’t think we’d be able to do that. Two or three things along with the College World Series, and other things we have going, is what we aim for.”

Some other sporting events coming to Omaha in a busy 2008:

• The high school state wrestling tournament, Feb. 14 to 16 at the Qwest Center.
• The NCAA women’s bowling championships, April 10 to 12 at Thunder Alley.
• The Junior Olympic national track and field meet, July 21 to 28 at Burke Stadium. Held three times in Omaha since 1999, Junior Olympics attract an estimated 6,000 athletes.
• The National Veterans Wheelchair Games, July 22 to 30.

Cliff has seen enough of Omaha to realize the city can handle the load. He has run major swimming events in both Montreal and Melbourne, Australia.

“What it does to me is it shows that Omaha is a support city, that it’s interested in doing things at that level,” Cliff said. “And I think one of the biggest things going for it is the fact that it doesn’t have professional sports.”