Live: The Business of Sports in St. Louis

Thanks.

And I, you know, I keep...

You know, when I was on the podcast for the magazine, I got one episode.

Brad gets two.

So not that we're competitive.

So I got a number for you.

663.

Anybody know what that number means?

Hide the

arch.

Nope.

It's a good guess, but no, that's not it.

All right, I'll tell you about that 663 in a minute, but keep that number in your head.

Somebody asked, well, why would you sponsor a panel on sports? You're business guys.

So there's a study that's done every year that asks CEOs, all things being equal, why do you pick one community over the other? And the three answers are always the same.

They're in a different order some years, but they're always the same.

I have a friend who has a business there, or somebody I trust, and they say great things about the community.

I visited there and I had an amazing experience and I want my business to be there.

Or I read great things about the community and successes they were having and I want to be part of that success.

That encapsulates the visitor economy.

That encapsulates why sports is so important to this community, why it's integral to our brand.

but it also is economics.

So when I look at, and I'll probably steal Mark's thunder a little bit, but when we look at US figure skating here, 90,000 people attended an event for US figure skating.

$16 million new into our economy.

impact when we look at the BMW championships a hundred and fifty five thousand people attended that event and tens of millions of dollars of exposure for this community I saw those events on a media that I trust people that I trust said good things about it and they're having success and I want to be part of that success that's why this is so important to us Now to 663.