Region capitalizes on youth sports trend to drive tourism
If you walk into a hotel lobby in Merrillville, Hammond, Elkhart or Crown Point most weekends, you’ll find a scene that has become familiar and economically vital. Teams of young athletes lounging in warm-ups, parents hauling duffel bags, and coaches strategizing over bagels and coffee.
They’re checking in, checking out, eating, shopping, exploring — and together, they are fueling one of the Region’s fastest-growing economic engines.
Youth sports have evolved into a competitive tourism industry with national reach and multi-million-dollar implications. For Northwest Indiana, they’re no longer a sideshow. They’re center stage.
Economic engine
Few understand the scale better than Jimmy Nelson, director of sports for the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority. Nelson oversees the sports-tourism portfolio for Lake County, but his job requires monitoring everything happening across Northwest Indiana.
No other CVB in the Region employs a full-time sports specialist — a detail that underscores the growing complexity of the field.
“I have to keep my finger on the pulse of anything sports related in Northwest Indiana and most importantly in Lake County,” Nelson said.
On the desk in his office sits a binder thick enough to rival a college textbook: the working calendar of youth and amateur sports tournaments slated for 2026.
It lists 114 events — and Nelson is quick to point out it’s far from exhaustive. Some organizations don’t like to share information for fear other organizations might like to compete to host them.
“But even with what we do know, the economic activity is enormous,” he said.
In April 2025, the Ohio-based Sports Event & Tourism Association reported that some $47.1 billion in direct spending with a total economic impact of $114.4 billion was generated by sports tourism. The industry supports almost 665,000 full- and part-time jobs across the country.
Those numbers are just expected to get larger over the next decade, Nelson said.
“We’ve seen it all around us. Everywhere you look, it seems like different communities are seeing those numbers and going, ‘We need to put a sports complex,’” Nelson said. “That’s whether it’s outdoor sports, indoor sports and attracting those tournaments on weekends to help pay those bills and get them in our hotels.”
Those 114 youth sport events planned for Northwest Indiana in 2026 are primarily baseball, softball, swimming and volleyball.
“If they all come through, that could generate in the ballpark of $45 million in this area,” Nelson said. “Sports tourism is such a hot topic, and it’s not going anywhere. It survived COVID. It’s going to keep going.”
Tournament play
According to Nelson, Northwest Indiana is home to an estimated 5,000 hotel rooms, a number that is expected to grow as tourism increases.
One of the events that helps fill those rooms is the Cal Ripken World Series for 11-year-olds scheduled for August in Crown Point.
“It’s only 24 teams, but they’re from the entire world. You’ll have at least six teams that come from outside the country and multiple teams from outside the state. They’re staying in Northwest Indiana for an entire week,” Nelson said. “The Australian team two years ago stayed here for 11 days. That’s a lot of trips to the waterpark, to the mall, to the restaurants. That’s a lot of shopping for those kids.”
Other events include the National Softball Association World Series in Crown Point in July, with some games played in Schererville and La Porte.
“There are 150 teams, sometimes up to 200 teams, in this area for seven days at a time. It’s even bigger than the 24 teams of the Cal Ripken World Series,” Nelson said.
Even college football has a home in Northwest Indiana.
In the NCAA Division II, there is the Albanese Candy Bowl that is played in December at the Brickie Bowl in Hobart.
Rising star: aquatics
While Lake County thrives on multi-sport complexes and baseball traditions, Elkhart County has quietly built a powerhouse of its own — in swimming.
The Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center, which opened in 2019, boasts one of the largest competitive pools in the country. Its size and amenities instantly positioned Elkhart to attract high-level meets.
“We host at least one or two major swim meets a year,” said Terry Mark, director of communications for the Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau. “College championships, national meets — anywhere from 500 to nearly 1,000 competitors.”
Each meet lasts three or four days. And unlike with some sports, swim teams stay together for the entire duration.
“You’re multiplying athletes, coaches, families, volunteers — all staying for several nights,” Mark said. “That’s thousands of room nights, plus dining and everything else visitors need.”
The aquatics center was born from a rare coalition of community organizations, including Beacon Health System, the Elkhart Community Schools and the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. The Region had lost its YMCA, and local schools faced mounting pool-maintenance costs. The combined effort produced not just a community amenity but a revenue-generating tourism asset.
Today, the facility hums with activity: fitness classes, recreational users, pickleball games, swim clubs and regional tournaments.
“It’s a beehive of activity,” Mark said. “And swimming is only one piece of it.”
In early March, the center hosted the NAIA National Women’s Swimming and Division championship. That’s 500 to 600 swimmers, he said.
Other college-level swim meets also have made their way to Elkhart, including the Great Lakes Valley Conference, and the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America swim meets.
“All of these events are anywhere from 500 to close to a thousand competitors,” Mark said. “I think the decision was to both build a swimming facility that would serve the community needs but also to generate a revenue source and that opportunity to attract larger events.”
The competitions often happen during winter or colder months, usually a down time for visitors to the area.
“This brings in hundreds and hundreds of visitors in a time when visitation is historically lower because it’s winter,” Mark said.
Hotels usually aren’t full during these months, so it is a boom for them.
“We’re able to bring in anywhere from a few thousand room nights to cover this event. That’s a significant boost for those businesses,” Mark said. “But then you also have the spillover into dining and all the services products that visitors, swim teams would need to support them over a course of a three- to four-day visit.”
Girls-sports revolution
Youth sports are evolving — not just in scale but in purpose. Nowhere is that more evident than at Marvella Sports, a new sports campus opening at Fair Oaks Farms with a mission unlike anything else in the country.
Marvella Sports is designed exclusively for young female athletes, blending elite sports training with leadership development, mental-health support and family-friendly amenities.
Marvella Sports is named after Marvella Bayh, the wife of the late U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana, who championed the Title IX law banning gender discrimination in education in 1972. Birch and Marvella are the parents of former Indiana U.S. Sen. and Gov. Evan Bayh.
Glenn Tilley, founder and chief operating officer for Marvella Sports, said the idea grew from three motivations. First, his experience leading youth baseball for Cal Ripken showed him the gaps in the system. Second, as a father to a daughter who played club and college lacrosse, he saw firsthand that girls often lacked equal access to resources and facilities. Third, the research was undeniable.
“Girls who play sports are less likely to struggle with mental health issues, more likely to be in healthy relationships, and more likely to become leaders,” Tilley said. “Ninety-four percent of women in executive roles attribute their success to sports.”
Yet despite the data, Tilley discovered no large-scale youth sports complexes in the U.S. dedicated solely to girls.
“So, we decided to build it,” he said.
Marvella Sports will host basketball, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, flag football and softball. The campus will include a massive indoor athletic facility, an indoor training center, community rooms, a research-focused athlete development program, and design features tailored specifically to girls — from locker rooms to rest areas to safety considerations.
“We built an environment that’s welcoming, private, secure and purpose-driven,” Tilley said. “You can drive in on Friday and not get back in your car until Sunday or Monday. Everything is walkable.”
The scale of opportunity is staggering. Within Indiana and Illinois alone, Tilley estimates 900,000 girls participate in youth sports. Within a three- to five-hour drive, the potential market jumps to 2.2 million female athletes.
The State of Indiana has taken notice. Over the next 25 years, Indiana Sports Corp. has named women’s and youth sports one of its five strategic pillars — and Marvella could be a national showcase.
“The marketplace can easily support this,” Tilley said. “And the mission is more important than ever. Girls are facing mental health challenges at alarming rates. Sports can help.”
Tilley anticipates the complex will drive economic development well beyond its home at Fair Oaks Farm in Newton County.
“It will have a significant economic impact on the community. It could impact the Crown Point area,” Tilley said. “I can tell you already, we’re going to need additional hotel rooms.”
Tilley said the complex is eyeing a late spring or early summer partial opening.
Hammond Sportsplex
If Marvella represents the future, the Hammond Sportsplex is proof that the present remains incredibly strong.
Opened in 2018, the Sportsplex quickly has become one of the busiest athletic facilities in the Midwest. In November, the Sportsplex completed an expansion that brings it to an eye-popping scale:
- 20 volleyball courts
- 10 basketball courts
- 3 indoor soccer fields
- 4 outdoor sand volleyball courts
The Sportsplex has its own in-house teams and leagues along with travel clubs with hundreds of children and teenagers participating, said Kymberli Roberts, Sportsplex general manager.
The center also hosts its own tournaments that can attract up to 160 teams for volleyball from throughout the Midwest.
In February, the center hosted Division I and Division II collegiate club volleyball teams from schools such as the University Notre Dame, Iowa State University, University of Michigan and University of Cincinnati.
“We had 30 teams, and they all stayed at our local hotels,” Roberts said. “They got gas, ate at our local restaurants. So, it’s a pretty big impact on our local economy for those days. I don’t have exact numbers, but we know that everyone stayed in a hotel that weekend.”
In April, the center will host dozens of basketball teams from across the country with NextPro Sports and Puma.
“We have a couple of cool tournaments every few years, and we get a very big reach across the country,” Roberts said. “We hosted our own MLK tournament where we had a lot of local colleges participate. We also had a team from Las Vegas.”
But the Sportsplex’s success wasn’t a sure thing.
When basketball courts in Merrillville closed in 2014, Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. drove past the shuttered facilities on a trip and immediately recognized a regional void.
“There was nowhere for kids to play,” Roberts said. “As soon as we opened our doors, tournament directors flooded in. There was such a need for not just Hammond but Northwest Indiana. There is such a need for this type of space.”
Defining Region
From aquatics to softball, volleyball to lacrosse, Northwest Indiana has embraced youth sports as a defining industry — one that supports hotels, restaurants, retail, transportation and tourism all year long.
The economic rationale is obvious. Sports tourism is steady. It’s recession resistant. It fills hotel rooms even in the coldest months. And it brings families — visitors who spend money across multiple categories, often repeatedly, as kids progress through seasons and age groups.
But beyond the dollars, there’s something deeper: identity.
Youth sports give Northwest Indiana something to celebrate and something to build around. They bring national visibility to communities that rarely receive it. They create opportunities for local families and pathways for young athletes. And they unite cities across the Region around a shared investment in the next generation.
“When you talk about tourism in Northwest Indiana, you almost have to talk about sports,” Nelson said. “That is a big, big critical key to what’s happening in Northwest Indiana with the growth all around here.”
In reality, youth sports aren’t just part of the Region’s economic strategy. It might be its most powerful play. ▪
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