TAMPA - The Tampa Bay Sports Commission, a key player in pursuing and landing big-time events such as the NCAA women's Final Four, is re-organizing.
"We will be housed under the Tampa (Bay) Convention & Visitors Bureau until we have a board meeting and hammer out how this is going to work," Sports Commission chairman Bill Repper said. "We've not finalized all our plans yet."
He could not say if that meeting will be this year. In the meantime, the only two full-time paid employees were let go Friday. That includes president Ross Bartow, who took the job in April 2001, after spending more than 30 years in the field with positions at the Tampa Sports Authority, the Atlanta Sports Council, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and Atlanta Paralympic organizing committee and the Memphis Motorsports Park.
The Commission will look to replace him in the coming months. The Convention and Visitors Bureau, itself an integral part of putting together attractive bids for events in an ultra-competitive environment, already has a sports manager, Terri Parnell. She worked on the Florida 2012 Olympic bid team.
"But we are not going away. We are not closing our doors," Repper said. "We are looking at a different structure than we have now, but the mission will be the same - to bring in big events as well as youth events."
The Sports Commission, a merger of competing entities in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, has helped lure the 2007 ACC men's basketball tournament, the 2008 women's Final Four and the Sunshine State Games to the bay area. It's a nonprofit, private organization.
