New money needed to put city on world sporting map

By Cheryl Rossi-Staff writer

The parks board wants the city to spend money to attract sports tourists. And if key recommendations proposed by the board are passed by council, the city will devote $250,000 to sporting events in 2007.

"There are just so many more groups now that are looking at Vancouver because we've gotten onto the world stage with the Olympics coming up in 2010," said Lori MacKay, the director of parks and recreation for the east district. "So the fact that we haven't really had a policy framework, it's really highlighting the need that we need to develop one."

MacKay will present a report to the standing committee on city services and budgets Thursday. The report, unanimously endorsed by parks board commissioners at their June 26 meeting, includes three key recommendations.

The first is to continue funding existing programs like HostingBC, an initiative of the provincial government, and the 2010 LegaciesNow program run by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The city committed $50,000 to the HostingBC program in 2004, another $50,000 in 2005, and is now being asked to commit the same amount for each of 2006 and 2007. HostingBC funds special events and tournaments leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

So far 70 successful applicants have received HostingBC grants ranging from $5,000 to $35,000, with 14 of these events in Vancouver. Last month's Four Weapon International World Cup fencing competition received $35,000 from HostingBC, and the Mobility Cup, an annual international regatta for sailors with disabilities slated for September, received $15,000.

But HostingBC doesn't cover multi-sport events like triathlons or community level tournaments like the Jewish Community Centre's Maccabi Games, an Olympic-style sports competition for Jewish teens. To address this gap, the parks board wants the city to approve a sport hosting policy and allocate $200,000 annually for national and international multi-sport events and invitational tournaments.

MacKay said the sports funding wouldn't draw from arts and culture funding.

"It's definitely not taking from one pocket in order to move it somewhere else," MacKay said. "The idea is for council to consider this as an addition to future operating budgets."

Parks board would also like council to approve development of a comprehensive sport strategy to guide the direction of sport infrastructure, programming and support.

MacKay said civic sports clubs, colleges and universities need to review existing facilities with the parks board to determine how local sport and recreation needs could be balanced with sports tourism.

"I think about things like Wimbledon. It's the character of some jurisdictions where they've really made a commitment to a specific event and they're known as doing a fabulous job in hosting that particular event or series of events," MacKay said. "It's a growing area within tourism right now, and so in some ways it's sort of like the convention market in that some cities have designated themselves as places that can do a really good job hosting certain kinds of events."

Michael Fox, manager of sports tourism with Tourism Vancouver, said Vancouver is on a level playing field with other Canadian cities in terms of hosting sports events but sports tourism is much stronger in the United States.

He says Vancouver could make millions from hosting sports events and that support for sports tourism is long overdue.

published on 07/12/2006