By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Kansas City Chiefs training camp is less than a month away, and St. Joseph is getting ready to roll out the red carpet and welcome Chiefs Kingdom to town for a 12th time.
Director of the St. Joseph Sports Commission Brett Esely says this year's training camp is the first fully normal camp since 2019, and he expects increased travel and commerce.
"I feel like there's going to be an influx of folks who are coming to town this year, so what does that mean?" Esely said. "It means increased room nights. It means increased folks in our restaurants and shopping establishments. With that, it's always good when those people can have extracurricular things to do related to camp, but elsewhere in town."
The training camp attendance record was broken in 2019 with 63,000 people attending in all.
As of now, this is the last year that the Chiefs are required to come to St. Joseph and Missouri Western for camp. Practices will begin on July 27 with the first practice open to fans on the 28th and Red Rally on the 29th.
Esely says the three weeks of training camp always provides a unique opportunity for St. Joseph to showcase itself.
"We want to make sure we're promoting our city and things to do in our city," he said. "Also, promoting simplified things of, 'Hey, practice today. If you need more information, this is where you go,' because we will have an influx of folks that have either not been to St. Joseph that much or at all. So, it's a really good opportunity for our community."
Looking a bit further ahead, the NCAA Division II women's basketball Elite Eight comes to Civic Arena this coming March for the fifth time ever and for the first time since 2011. Esely, who’s also the Elite Eight tournament director, says getting the arena ready to host is critical.
"These teams, some of them have been to the Elite Eight before and some of which have never been to the Elite Eight," Esely said. "They have worked hard all year to get to that point. That's what teams are working toward - to get to the Elite Eight and play for a national championship and you want to be sure that environment is lively."
Just this month, St. Joseph city council approved the purchase of new LED scorers' tables for Civic Arena, which will host the Elite Eight again in 2024 and has put in a bid to host state volleyball in 2025.
Of course in 2026, Kansas City will be a host city for the FIFA World Cup, attracting thousands of new people to the city and region. Esely says the city and Missouri Western State University could have a unique role when the World Cup rolls around.
"There's going to be a lot of communities in the sites of the games or in the surrounding communities of the sites of the games that are going to serve as hubs for countries competing in the World Cup," Esely said. "The folks from FIFA came and did a site visit at Missouri Western."
The World Cup is estimated to generate around $695 million of economic activity in the state of Missouri. The 2018 World Cup drew about 364 billion views over the nearly month-long event.
Needless to say, St. Joseph has some big things coming its way soon, and Esely says there’s always looking for more.
"We're always looking at what's next," he pointed out. "So, we're excited to host these events. But, we don't want these events to be the only events. We want to be in a regular cycle every year and to do that, we just have to do some things better than other communities do and I'm confident we'll do that."
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