Noah Buckley, president and CEO of Ottawa Tourism, says the World Cup will help the local economy.
Local tourism and soccer officials say the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is going to be a big boost, both for Ottawa’s local economy and for female soccer participation.
The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance, headquartered on Lisgar Street, compiled a report this past February outlining the preliminary economic impact projections for both the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup and the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
Both competitions are expected to bring in more than $337 million in economic activity across the country, with the 2015 event providing the bulk of it at just over $267 million compared with the $70 million for 2014. For Ottawa, the report estimates the 2015 competition will pump in as much as $16.5 million.
Tony Fisher, director of research for the CSTA and author of the report, says economic impact is defined as “the increase in economic activity that takes place as the result of hosting an event.”
To calculate this, the CSTA used the Sport Tourism Economic Assessment Model, known as STEAM.
Fisher says it uses between 10,000 and 15,000 surveys of visitors at events across the country to “try to figure out how much a stereotypical sport tourist spends when they go to a host community to attend an event.”
Noel Buckley, president and CEO of Ottawa Tourism, says major events such as the 2015 competition have a wide impact over a variety of local sectors, meaning that “everybody tends to do a little bit better.”
He says the sectors that will most likely benefit will be “hotels, attractions, retail and food and beverage. Those are the traditional areas where people would spend their money when they’re on vacation.”
For the 2015 competition, Ottawa will be hosting nine games in the TD Place Stadium at Lansdowne Park from June 6 to July 5.
The last event Ottawa hosted at the stadium was the FIFA U-20 Men’s World Cup in 2007.
TD Place Stadium is also the new home for the Ottawa Fury FC, which will be making its professional debut this summer in the North American Soccer League.
The club’s president, John Pugh, says the U-20 World Cup showed that Ottawa is a viable soccer town.
“If you look back to 2007,” he says, “the games in Ottawa were a tremendous success. Whenever great world-class soccer has been put in front of Ottawa fans, they’ve always come out and supported and the U-20 was a perfect example of that.”
Ottawa hosted eight games in 2007, each of which was played in front of a near-sellout crowd of almost 27,000 people.
Pugh says major soccer events also lead to an increase in the sport’s participation.
“2002 to 2007 was probably where you saw the biggest spike [in female participation],” says Richard Scott, director of communications for the National Organising Committee for the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
In 2002, Canada hosted the first-ever FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship. At the time, female soccer participation was at 20 per cent. However, in the five years leading up to the 2007 competition, the number doubled to 42 per cent, where it has remained consistent for the last five to seven years, says Scott.
Regarding the increase in participation, Pugh says “it’s also what we saw previously when the women’s team has done particularly well as they did in the Olympics with the bronze medal.There was again an upsurge in interest in the women’s game and that always spills over to young players who suddenly see a role model they want to emulate.”