Grand Traverse Resorts Invests In Portable Sports Flooring, Will Host First Basketball Tournament This Weekend
Grand Traverse Vacation resort and Spa is no stranger to sporting events. The house regularly hosts tennis tournaments at its health club, and Unique Olympics Michigan has applied the Vacation resort as 1 of its venues various instances about the yrs. This weekend, although, the Vacation resort will do a thing it’s in no way done ahead of: host a youth basketball competition.

Basketball tournaments have not been amongst the Resort’s offerings around the many years because of to the very simple truth that there are no basketball courts on the premises. But thanks to a substantial investment decision in temporary wood sports flooring, Grand Traverse Resort is now capable to renovate its health club into a momentary indoor sports activities sophisticated. It is a exclusive technique, and one particular the hotel is hoping will increase its demographic reach, enhance its shoulder time business, and create about 1,000 space evenings just about every calendar year.

In accordance to Caroline Rizzo, the Resort’s public relations manager, this weekend’s Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball tournament will attract an attendance of “close to 800 folks,” spanning 34 youth basketball teams from Michigan metropolitan areas like Sault Ste Marie, Chesterfield, Grand Rapids, Dearborn, Bay Metropolis, Detroit, Eaton Rapids, Saline, Oscoda, Midland, Cadillac, Gaylord, and Traverse Town.

The tournament marks the large premiere of the new sporting activities flooring, which Rizzo says the Resort bought final drop. The occasion is also the start out of a new partnership in between the Vacation resort and FAAST Sports, a downstate-based mostly youth sports activities event vendor that performs with journey athletics groups from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Beyond this weekend, FAAST will provide 5 other AAU youth basketball tournaments to the Resort this year, which include occasions scheduled for March, April, May perhaps, and June.

Rizzo tells The Ticker that the FAAST Athletics partnership will very likely be just the 1st in a sequence of initiatives by the Resort to crack further into the athletics earth. With the flooring, the hotel is ready to transform all the tennis court area inside of its wellness club into play space. Currently, the flooring is painted to make it possible for for four basketball courts and five volleyball courts, but Rizzo claims that sporting activities like wrestling, dance, and cheer could also be in enjoy.

“We’ve also been in communication with the Detroit Pistons on internet hosting camps or tournaments, or other items with corporations like them,” Rizzo adds. “So, there’s a large amount of really awesome prospective for some exciting events that that could provide folks up right here to Traverse City.”

Though Rizzo acknowledges that the new flooring was “a sizable financial commitment for the Resort,” she also states the small business is optimistic that the significant upfront spend will spend off in the lthe kind of excess company. By them selves, the tournaments the Resort now has on the plan for this yr will create an approximated 1,200 space nights for the home. But Rizzo also states that, since of its exclusive value proposition as a sporting venue, Grand Traverse Resort has potential to mature that range appreciably in the long term.

“This is a new initiative for Traverse Metropolis in conditions of keep-and-engage in offerings,” Rizzo points out. “It is huge to have everything happen on one particular home – [including] lodging, match perform, and features. There is no put in the Midwest that at present provides a stay-and-enjoy selection. You’d have to go to Virginia, Pennsylvania, or Tennessee [to find something comparable].”

In 2018, Traverse Metropolis Tourism (TCT) employed a consulting organization to conduct a feasibility analyze assessing the expenditures and probable financial gains of developing a year-round indoor sports elaborate in Traverse Metropolis. That exertion did not eventually guide to a new facility, but Rizzo suggests TCT was rapid to bounce in as a best sponsor when the Vacation resort begun discovering the sports activities flooring possibility. Other sponsors contain Pepsi, Gatorade, Gordon Foodstuff Services, and Midwestern Broadcasting.