Hosting the World Series is about more than peanuts, Cracker Jack and a good ball game these days. Today, for cities, hosting the World Series means the possibility of bringing in tens-of-millions of dollars of revenue. As the St. Louis Cardinals compete to win the team's 12th World Series title, city leaders have put a price tag on the value of each game played at Busch Stadium.
According to the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission and Regional Chamber, it is expected that each World Series game held at Busch Stadium created an economic impact of $7.9 million. During the course of the seven-game series, three games were held at Busch Stadium. Thus, the impact of the Cardinals' World Series participation equated to a $23.7 million economic impact for the city of St. Louis. The CVC notes that this number is in addition to $5.9 million in economic impact that was created for each game held at Busch Stadium earlier in the MLB postseason.
How is the value of this economic impact calculated? According to Brian Hall, the chief marketing officer of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission,the CVC "takes the total attendance for each home World Series game, which was approximately 48,000. We know based on license plate surveys taken in prior World Series that about 50-percent of those fans come from outside of a 100-mile radius from St. Louis. We count on 10,000 of them staying overnight. Based upon these factors and the economic indicators we collect year-round in reference to overnight accommodations, meals, entertainment and other ancillaries, we are able to value the economic impact."
Perhaps what is most interesting about the $7.9 million economic impact each home World Series game brought to St. Louis, is where in the community the impact was felt. According to the St. Louis CVC, $4.2 million of each game's impact will circulate throughout the entire St. Louis region. This means that the broadest portion of the economic impact spurred by the Cardinals' home World Series games was felt outside of Busch Stadium and its immediate area.
As highlighted above, one factor driving the Cardinals' World Series economic impact is the number of out-of-town game attendees. St. Louis' CVC estimates that out-of-town visitors normally make up 40-percent of Busch Stadium attendance for Cardinals games. The ten-percent increase for the World Series not only drove up the amount of economic impact felt, but how much hotels charged guests for the 16,000 rooms in the St. Louis area. Hall notes that some St. Louis hotels were charging $350 per night during the Cardinals' home World Series games. In retrospect, the highest hotel rate for November 4 (one week after the last World Series game held at Busch Stadium) on Hotels.com was $265. "Hotel rates during the World Series exceeded what they normally would have been during an ordinary commercial time period in St. Louis," Hall remarked.
Hall remains confident that St. Louis achieved the $7.9 million per game economic impact that his organization estimated. He noted, "Monday night was absolutely huge. For the first time in history, we had both a World Series game and a Monday Night Football performance. There were in the vicinity of 100,000 fans in downtown St. Louis. We have complete confidence given the sold out hotel conditions that existed yesterday and throughout the weekend that we met the estimate."
