Four thousand youth bowlers will descend on Northeast Wisconsin later this month for the U.S. Bowling Congress Junior Gold Championship. They’ll be bowling at eight different locations in Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh and Weston, with registration and opening ceremonies being held at the Resch Expo and Resch Center in Green Bay.
“We expect a $6 million impact here in Brown County and $13 million for the entire area” from the tournament, says Joel Everts, sports manager with Discover Green Bay.
The $13 million includes hotel stays, eating out in restaurants, shopping, attractions and more.
“They only bowl once a day, so they have the rest of the day to explore the area,” Everts says.
The U.S. Bowling Congress Junior Gold Championship is one of many sports-related youth or amateur activities that brings thousands of athletes and fans to the region each year. While the Green Bay Packers are a massive tourism draw, these other activities also play vital roles in the region’s sports tourism economy.
In 2021, youth sports tourism generated $39.7 billion in direct spending in the United States, with a total economic impact of $91.8 billion, according to a Towson University study.
“Sporting events like Green Bay since we have a big city atmosphere but small city charm,” Everts says. “Once events come here, they’ll come back. They like the hospitality and what we all have to offer. Organizations realize we can host big events — we’re small, but mighty.”
On the ice and courts
The variety of venues, from the Resch and Cornerstone Community Center in the Green Bay area to Community First Champion Center in the Fox Cities and Brighton Acres in Oshkosh, allows the region to host a wide range of tournaments and activities from hockey and basketball to dance competitions and powerlifting tournaments.
“Youth sports is our bread and butter in the Fox Cities,” says Matt Ten Haken, director of sports marketing at the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We work really well with event directors, our local teams and local venues.”
In 2024, the Fox Cities set a new record by hosting 257 events with $14 million in direct visitor spending.
“The economic impact of these events comes from staying in hotels, attendees going shopping or visiting restaurants and attractions,” Ten Haken says.
In addition to hosting the bowling tournament this summer, the Green Bay area hosted the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship at the Resch Center in June.
For that event, 2,000 gymnasts from across the country came to Green Bay.
Everts says the Resch Expo, which opened in January 2021, has been a boon for bringing youth sporting events to the area. The 125,000-square-foot, column-free facility has hosted gymnastics, cheer and dance competitions as well as adult sporting events, including cornhole tournaments.
Next door, the Resch Center has hosted WIAA state high school tournaments for girls’ basketball as well as boys’ and girls’ volleyball. Those events attract teams and their fans from across Wisconsin.
“We have a good mix of facilities in Green Bay” to host a variety of sporting events, Everts says.
Hockey is big in the Green Bay and Fox Cities areas, which have complexes with multiple sheets of ice, making them ideal for tournaments. Ashwaubenon’s Cornerstone Community Center has three sheets of ice and is in the process of adding a fourth sheet. In addition to hockey tournaments, the space also hosts the U.S. Hockey League (USHL) combine events. Prospective hockey players travel to Northeast Wisconsin to be seen by hockey coaches from the USHL — of which the Green Bay Gamblers are members.
In the Fox Cities, the Champion Center has two sheets of ice — one is year-round while another is seasonal. The rinks are kept busy with weekend tournaments and games and provide practice space to the area’s many local youth and high school teams.
In addition to hockey tournaments, the Champion Center hosts basketball and volleyball tournaments on the weekends. Some tournaments are so large that some games are held at local high schools.
Located in Grand Chute, the Champion Center opened in 2019 with three sports spaces — a permanent hard court, a permanent ice sheet and one space that is used as an ice sheet for part of the year and a hard court for the other part of the year.
“We are maxed out at the Champion Center,” says Ten Haken, adding there is some preliminary talk about adding more courts.
“Our goal is to bring events here and provide them with an amazing experience, so they want to come back again,” he says. “We have top-notch facilities, great volunteers who make the teams feel like they’re home, and a great sports community that embraces these events.”
The Fox Cities Exhibition Center in downtown Appleton is also used for sporting events, including dance and cheer events and the state high school powerlifting tournament — it has even played host to competitions for billiards and for both knife- and axe-throwing.
“It’s a wide-open space, so there is a lot you can do there,” Ten Haken says.
Field play
Volleyball — a sport not usually linked to grass — has a huge presence in Oshkosh during the second weekend in July when Brighton Acres hosts the Waupaca Boatride Volleyball Tournament. Jodi Jensema of Discover Oshkosh says the event is one of the largest grass volleyball tournaments in the nation, with 3,000 teams having attended in 2024.
The same goes when youth soccer teams hit the fields at Winnebago County Park the second weekend in June for the Oshkosh on the Water Soccer Tournament, which attracts teams from across the Upper Midwest. Soccer Saturday — usually held the third weekend in July — is another event that brings youth and their families to the area.
Many teams come from out of the area, so that leads to an increase in hotel stays, restaurant visits and more.
“We do see an increase in hotel rooms, camping and day trippers. We see a huge bump in hotel usage on the weekends during the spring and summer months, which comes from other events, too, including AirVenture, Lifest and multiple fishing tournaments,” Jensema says, adding that dining and shopping also increases along with hotel usage during events.
The USA Youth Sports Complex in Appleton hosts soccer matches and tournaments from spring through fall. In addition to hosting two of its own tournaments, the complex also hosts state and regional level soccer competitions.
“USA Youth is one of the top soccer complexes in the upper Midwest and attracts a lot of events,” Ten Haken says.
Neenah’s Memorial Park also has multiple soccer fields and hosts a large tournament each May.
“Many families view these tournaments as mini vacations — they see it as a time when they can explore a new area in between their games,” Ten Haken says. “They’re staying in hotels, eating at local restaurants, buying gas … it all adds up.”
Jensema says the facilities at UW Oshkosh, especially J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium, are frequently used by high school and youth athletes.
“They get a great experience playing on these college facilities, and it’s something else we can offer,” she says.
