The NW Sports Hub sign sits on display Thursday afternoon in Centralia.
The Northwest Sports Hub in Centralia has canceled all remaining tournaments for the month of March and Public Facilities District Board member Todd Chaput said the community could see $750,000 of lost revenue because of the cancelations.
The tournaments draw revenue for the community because of the influx of people to Centralia from all over southwest Washington that come to compete at the sports hub and stay in town overnight.
“We’ve canceled all March (tournaments) and probably April and that’s going to have a huge economic impact on the community, especially to my hotel— I’m the manager of the Holiday Inn Express. That’s going to be over the next couple of months, over 1,000 hotel room nights. It’ll probably be $750,000 of lost revenue to the community,” said Chaput.
The managing directors of the Northwest Sports Hub, Dale Pullin and Lyle Overbay, are playing it by ear but it is possible that they will cancel all tournaments in April as well, Pullin said.
“A lot of it stems from the governor’s request that the size of the groups not exceed 250. We felt it was important to honor that,” said Dale Pullin, managing director of the Northwest Sports Hub.
Pullin said that the 43-team volleyball tournament that was held at the NW Sports Hub last weekend drew about 2,000 people including the coaches, referees and parents most of which stayed in town overnight.
“It’s mostly because the tournament promoters and their sanctioning bodies will not sanction their events,” Pullin said.
The Northwest Sports Hub will still be hosting smaller games and events that have crowds fewer than 250 people.
“We want to do whatever we’re told to do through good guidance and practice because obviously everybody is trying to do the same thing and avoid future problems,” said Pullin.
