Photo by Jessica Vaitis
Mayor Marilyn Hatley studies the projector during a presentation by Gary Loftus. The presentation on sports tourism and its economic impact in North Myrtle Beach was well received by the mayor and the rest of the city council.

By Jessica Vaitis
The North Myrtle Beach City Council met on Monday night to view a presentation on the potential economic impact of sports tourism in the city. The report, prepared by Gary Loftus, director of the BBT Center for Economic and Community Development, gave conservative estimates of the potential income of several sports events that could be attracted to a proposed sports complex. The events would be a combination of youth sports, college sports and adult sports. The software used to calculate the economic impact, called IMPLAN, is specifically tailored to Horry County.
The council requested the report to see if sports tourism and the building of a complex to attract them would be worthwhile for the city. The total economic impact of the 17 potential events listed came to a total of over $14 million in revenue for the city, measuring not only the direct impact of guests and visitors to the city but also the indirect and induced impact of their money, as well as how sports tourism could raise employment.
“What’s interesting here is the number of jobs that are created, which brings more continuous revenue to the area,” said Loftus. According to the numbers in the report, the events would create 155 jobs in North Myrtle Beach directly, another 22 indirectly and 16 more induced, for a total of 193 over the course of a year. The IMPLAN software estimated that nearly $5 million in revenue could be created by the new jobs.
According to Loftus, the report’s estimates were conservative. Youth events were estimated to bring in an additional 1.5 visitors for every player, while adult events were estimated at only .5 additional visitors and college events another .25 visitors. The report looked at the spending trends of each group in relation to lodging and incidentals, restaurants, auto rentals and gas, recreational activities and entertainment and other expenses.
“The important line here is the economic impact that this could have on North Myrtle Beach,” said Mayor Marilyn Hatley. The sports complex would require eight multi-purpose fields to operate. The only catch, according to Loftus, would be obtaining approximately 100 acres for the city for the sports complex, which brought up talks of an amphitheatre attached to the project and the potential for cultural events and other developments alongside sports tourism.
Councilman Hank Thomas expressed his concerns about competing with the city of Myrtle Beach and asked whether or not there was enough business for both cities. According to Loftus, the cities would be able to cooperate to help each other accommodate larger tournaments as they have in the past.
“The more facilities we’ve got the bigger we can get,” said Loftus, stating that sports tourism is a growing trend in the Grand Strand area. North Myrtle Beach would also actively promote sports in the area in an effort to extend the fall and spring economic seasons. With warmer weather during those seasons than many other regions of the country, discussion of attracting tournaments and events outside the southeast was also discussed.
“We are also more economically affordable. That’s a really big draw for us,” said Mayor Hatley, “We could even look internationally.” Examples of international competitions in Myrtle Beach and other similar areas were cited during Loftus’ presentation. The potential for the same sort of events in North Myrtle Beach is feasible in the event a sports complex is built.
“There’s another huge plus to all of this, our own children. We could help to advance and improve our own teams here and help more students draw sports scholarships,” said Mayor Hatley. At the conclusion of the presentation, Loftus was congratulated on his presentation before the council went into executive session to discuss legal issues with the dredging of the Cherry Grove channels.