Sports makes out in lean time

While the budget is cut, Hillsborough gives more to its Sports Commission.

By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 16, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT Rob Higgins is the executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission.

TAMPA - These are tough times for groups that rely on Hillsborough County tax money to do good deeds.

County commissioners are poised to slash spending on nonprofits, with some getting cut off completely in response to state-mandated property tax reductions.

But one group that promotes amateur sporting events is coming out just fine, thanks to a County Commission dominated by big sports fans. The county is proposing to give the Tampa Bay Sports Commission $900,000, or double what it got last year.

County officials say the increase is justified because the Sports Commission books events that lure people to town who spend money. They say the payoff in sales, hotel tax receipts and jobs dwarfs the initial investment.

The ballyhooed payoff from hosting sporting events is debatable at best, say those who have questioned the County Commission's priorities. And during tough times, they say, cutbacks that have led to hundreds of layoffs at County Center should be shared by all.

"I'm very disappointed with my first experience of determining who gets what," said Rose Ferlita, a former Tampa City Council member serving her first term on the County Commission. "It's not very thoughtful. We're just very, very prejudicial in the way we're trying to distribute those dollars."

Along with layoffs, Hillsborough County is shaving what it spends on nonprofit groups by an average of 25 percent for most. That affects programs that help domestic abuse victims, train unskilled workers and mentor poor children, just when a tough economy could create more of them.

"Rather than spending money on the people who are visitors, we should be spending it on the people who live here," said Louise Thompson, who heads the Tampa Bay Community Network, which runs the county's public access station.

In its early years, the Sports Commission largely staged youth championship games at Raymond James Stadium and other venues. Its work has taken off in recent years.

It landed the Atlantic Coast Conference college basketball tournament earlier this year. It has the NCAA women's Final Four basketball tournament on tap for next year, as well as a bracket of the first two rounds of the men's tournament.

All told, the group helped attract more than 80 sporting events last year that it claims resulted in 116,000 overnight hotel stays.

"We weren't being awarded any of it until the investment started to take place," said Rob Higgins, executive director of the Sports Commission. He is seeking the extra money this year to bid for and stage more sporting events, and to help pay the costs of tournaments it already has landed.

Commissioners Jim Norman, a former youth sports coach, and Brian Blair, a former wrestler and current youth sports coach, supported the Sports Commission. Commissioner Ken Hagan, a former baseball standout, proposed increasing spending beyond the $900,000.

"I mean, why else do cities line up a mile long to bid on these things?" Hagan said. "You think they do it because it's a losing proposition? I mean, this is a no-brainer."

He withdrew his proposal when efforts by Ferlita and Kevin White to lower the increase failed.

Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or 813 226-3387.

[Last modified September 15, 2007, 23:25:21]