By Cathy Nelson Price of the Daily News
cnprice@mdn.net
(click banner for original news story)

The Midland Explorers Booster Club now has unanimous City Council approval to make Midland the host city for the World Softball Tournament in August of next year.

Booster Club President Kyle Beane told the council Monday night that the International Softball Congress (ISC), the governing body of international softball, was ready to award host city rights to Midland.

“ISC officials visited June 12 and 13,” Beane said. “The ISC is very excited to come. They’ve been running this tournament since the late 1940s, and they’re excited to finally bring Midland into the mix.”

Beane projected attendance of 20,000, with another 50,000-100,000 listening to and following over the Internet.

“An event of this type can expect to produce about $2.3 million in economic impact,” added Explorers’ representative David Lach.

The week-long tournament will be at Emerson Park and the Redcoats Complex.

The club estimates that about $30,000 will be needed to host the tournament, which will include reimbursing the city for additional staff time needed for field maintenance and security. About 30 sponsors are lined up so far.

“Our goal is to make this more than just a tournament,” Beane said. “We want it to be an event.”

The Midland Explorers Boosters Club is a non-profit group formed in 1986 to promote fastpitch softball in the Midland community.

For our earlier post “Currie Stadium in Midland – “the best fastball stadium in North America.”, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm and is filed under General, ISC, ISC-II, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.