Final Four weekend was pretty good for Houston

We’ll take it.

Beyond the basketball court, the Houston economy appears to be the big winner of the Final Four.

Across the city, several restaurants, bars and hotels reported big boosts in customers and cash flow, as an estimated 70,000 out-of-town basketball fans arrived for the NCAA men’s basketball championship. Organizers say those fans could spend $150 million in a city that could use a lift as a prolonged oil slump persists.

“I feel like it’s exceeded expectations,” said Rachel Quan, vice president of external operations for the Houston Final Four Local Organizing Committee.

Many local officials and business leaders said they view the Final Four as something of a test-run for next year’s Super Bowl. The city is sprucing up to accommodate the thousands of expected visitors with a slew of development projects – from road improvements around NRG Stadium and Hobby Airport to building the Marriott Marquis that will connect with the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The benefits of hosting major sporting events -weighing costs and crowds versus the visitor spending and promotion – have long been debated. At times, the city struggled over the weekend to accommodate the swarms of Final Four visitors. Concerts at Discovery Green in downtown were so busy that police were forced to turn people away, leading some to complain of poor planning.

The Final Four alone might not create a wave of economic growth, but is the culmination of events like the Super Bowl and the annual Offshore Technology Conference next month that have the greatest potential impact, said Barton Smith, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Houston.

“Collectively, it can be a very important part of the Houston economy,” he said.

I’ve made plenty of fun of economic impact projections for sporting events, but this at least is talking about something that has already happened, and whatever you think about those projections, it’s a different matter when a business like Phoenicia reports a big increase in sales during the period in question. As always, you still have to be careful about accepting numbers like these on their face, as some folks might have stayed home instead of going out or otherwise not spent money that they would have if there hadn’t been a big event crowding the streets and clogging up traffic. We also don’t know how much the city had to spend on maintenance, overtime, cleanup, and what have you – that figure is never taken into account in these stories. But overall it seems that local businesses got a boost from the weekend’s activities, and that’s always a good thing. Let’s hope we get more of the same from next year’s Super Bowl.

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One Response to Final Four weekend was pretty good for Houston

  1. brad says:

    I think the key phrase is “could spend” $150M.

    Yeah, those out of town students crowding into a accommodation are going to be spending +$2,150 per person. Highly unlikely.

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