January 2, 2014 – Plans for a new baseball and softball complex in Peoria, Illinois, have been under way for some time, but only recently was the partnership behind the complex revealed: Louisville Slugger, the 130-year-old maker of baseball and softball bats, has signed on with developers to complete the project.
Featuring 10 outdoor youth fields, plus a 125,000-square foot dome for year-round play, the new $33 million facility will be called the Louisville Slugger Sports Complex. City officials expect the complex to host between 11,000 and 12,000 games annually, approximately 10,000 games more than Peoria has been hosting for a number of years at an existing facility. Projected to have a core reach of about a 300-mile radius, the facility will also host teams from around the country, including college teams.
“When a high-profile sporting goods company decides to help fund a new, landmark venue, it’s a big deal,” says Eric Willin, COO of EZFacility, a sports facility software management developer in Woodbury, New York. “A deal like this one stands to benefit the company, the complex, the surrounding community, and the athletes who use the facility alike.”
Louisville Slugger products will be sold at the venue, and the atmosphere will be designed to mirror a big-league experience, with walk-out-style dugouts, bullpens, lights, electronic scoreboards, and public address systems. Over a quarter million people are expected to visit annually.
Louisville Slugger Opens New Sports Facility
« News | | | (0) Comments |
y son calls me a scaredy-cat because I’m constantly throwing warnings out at him: “Don’t run on the ice, you could fall and hurt yourself!” “Be careful on those rocks; they look slippery.” “Please don’t climb any higher up that fence; if you fall and crack your head open, you’ll be sorry!” I’m not a scaredy-cat, I tell him; I just have to give the warning because if something actually happens, I’ll feel even worse about it if I failed to alert him to the danger beforehand. The better tactic, I know, would be to remove the ice, the rocks, and the fence before he can even test them, but out in the world that’s just not possible.
You struggle with retaining members and signing up new clients. How could you not? With the proliferation of low-cost health clubs, wearable technology, home video exercise plans, and YouTube workout videos that go viral within hours, traditional fitness facilities face enormous challenges these days — and experts tell us we’re only at the beginning of what will be a sea change in the way the fitness industry operates. In this blog space there’s been a lot of talk about facing the challenges by building communities; investing in trainers, staff, and other human resources; and incorporating technology. Here’s another approach to consider: becoming the solution.
Have you heard about the CEO Pledge? It’s a campaign promoted by the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA) to encourage CEOs to recognize physical activity as an important driver of employee health and business performance. In other words, it’s a great opportunity for health clubs to connect with corporate clients.
Over at the website of the International Health, Racquet, and Sports Club Association (IHRSA), there’s an interesting post about advertising. It features three very different clubs and the three very different forms of advertising they use.
Every year around this time of year, it feels like someone has turned the dial up a couple notches. Whereas earlier in the fall everything was just busy, suddenly now everything is insanely chaotic. Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving break mean quite a few no-school days, and there always seem to be a couple professional development and parent-teacher conference half-days around the same time. At work, everyone is scrambling to finish projects before the end of the year, and all of those projects seem to land up on your desk at the same time. Meanwhile, you find yourself invited, in the span of three weeks, to more parties than you’ve been invited to all year. And then there’s the holiday shopping, cooking, planning, and wrapping to do (don’t even ask me about season’s-greetings cards — I gave up on those years ago).
Wandering around among witches, dragons, princesses, and Harry Potters this Halloween, I watched my own little ninja’s jack-o-lantern fill up with various forms of sugar, and I despaired — not at the thought of all the junk food he’d be consuming, because I knew that after a few days the novelty would wear off and he’d forget about it, but at the thought of all the tempting treats that would be sitting in my cabinet over the next couple months. While I’m pretty good at defeating sugar cravings day to day, Halloween candy undoes me. There’s so much of it, it’s all so accessible (when my son’s not looking), and it ignites so many nostalgic childhood pleasures.