A college football team will likely bring in more tourism and economic development to the county, local city and economic officials say.
Indiana Wesleyan University announced Friday evening that the university will have a football team beginning in the fall of 2018. No specific location for the football stadium has been chosen yet, but the university’s Athletic Director Mark DeMichael said the college is currently looking at five or six on-campus sites, adding that the stadium will cost anywhere from $6 million to $9 million to build and seat 2,500 to 4,000 people.
That kind of investment is likely to spur more investment in the county, whether it’s visitors spending money when visiting to watch one of the six home games or business owners investing to give visitors options to spend their money, Tim Eckerle, executive director of the Grant County Economic Growth Council, said.
“It’s going to draw more people to the county,” Eckerle said. “Maybe that leads to additional restaurants or gas stations.”
What it will almost certainly do, John Lightle, director of the Grant County Visitor and Tourism Bureau said, is bring more out of county residents into Grant County and that’s good news he added.
How many or how exactly an influx of visitors will affect the county is unknown. Lightle said the bureau had not done any studies, but he said he had no doubt businesses would see an uptick in out of county shoppers.
“College sports, whether it’s basketball or football, really does seem to draw a crowd, especially in Indiana,” Lightle said. “That’s what we like to see.”
New businesses and customers is also what the Marion-Grant County Chamber of Commerce likes to see. President/CEO of the Chamber Kylie Jackson said football will be good for Marion.
“Any new visitors would be good for the business community,” Jackson said.
As for any possible economic negatives of a football team, Eckerle said he couldn’t think of any.
“It’s not displacing anything,” Eckerle said about the soon-to-be-built football stadium. “There’s no comparable venue.”
DeMichael said the university planned to make each home game a significant event for college football fans in the community.