It's official: The 2003 ESPN Great
Outdoor Games are coming to Reno.
Executives from the sports TV network
and city officials, including Mayor Bob
Cashell, gathered last week to announce
that the event will take place in Reno's
Rancho San Rafael Park and on the
Truckee River next July 10-13.
With it comes close to 50 hours of
national TV coverage, on ESPN, ESPN2
and ABC Sports, and tens of thousands of
visitors to the area.
"This will have a tremendous economic
impact on Nevada," said Lt. Gov. Lorraine
Hunt, who was on hand for the announcement.
"All of our small businesses are very
happy."
"In the last three years we have built this
event into a premiere outdoor event," said
Michael Rooney, senior vice president and
general manager, ESPN. "We're taking it to
a higher level here and I don't just mean
altitude."
Rooney said only an NFL fan is more
avid than fans of hunting and fishing
events.
"We doubled attendance at Lake Placid
to 60,000, and we expect to be significantly
north of that number here," said Mark
Quenzel, senior vice president of programming
and production for ESPN.
The three year-old games have until
now been held in Lake Placid, N.Y., and
include 20 events spanning timber and target
competitions, sporting dogs and fishing.
According to ESPN, Lake Placid estimated
that the games brought in over $10
million annually to the area.
But the event is outgrowing its East
Coast venue, said Quenzel, and the network
wanted to move out west.
That's one reason Reno beat out all the
competition for the games, including
Madison,Wis., which was the other final
contender for the site.
"We started out looking at a large number
of sites and got it down to five, then
narrowed it to Reno-Tahoe and Madison,"
said Quenzel. "Both places had a lot to
offer. But we were impressed with the
enthusiasm and community spirit here.
And their goal of repositioning Reno-
Tahoe as an adventure destination fits
well."
The announcement of the upcoming
ESPN games was made at the Governor's
Conference on Tourism, in Reno, where
local and state tourism officials strived to
build up Nevada's image as a haven for
sports and recreation, and not just a gaming
oasis.
To win over ESPN, local hotels and
casinos promised to provide 3,000 complimentary
rooms for staff and participants
during the four-day event. And the Reno-
Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority
guaranteed that it would spend $300,000 in
advertising on ESPN to promote the event
in key, regional markets such as
Sacramento, said Jeff Beckelman, president
and CEO, RSCVA.
The wooing of ESPN took over six
months, according to Beckelman.
"I don't think we've ever had such an
opportunity to highlight Reno-Tahoe," he
said.
And if all goes well, the games will keep
spotlighting the area.
"We both agreed to put on the best
event in 2003," said ESPN's Quenzel.
"Then we'll take stock and see if it worked
for both parties."
