Alabama’s Beaches Sports & Events and Foley Sports Tourism helped Sports Alabama’s 12-member initiative produce 824 events around the Yellowhammer State in 2024 which created 686,451 hotel nights and $614,421,284 in economic impact.

Reported in the Sports Alabama Annual Report, Baldwin County’s sports tourism bureaus combined for 214 events which yielded 155,256 hotel nights and an economic impact of $127,400,000.

Across 123 events on the beach, Alabama’s Beaches — formerly Gulf Shores | Orange Beach Sports & Events — recorded 123,641 hotel nights and an economic impact of $80,400,000. With 91 events in Foley, 31,615 hotel nights helped bring in an economic impact of $47,000,000.

Birmingham was the group leader where 150 events led to 261,989 hotel nights and an economic impact of $249,982,453. Alabama’s Beaches had the second-highest economic impact, Foley ranked fifth and Mobile (77 events, 54,920 hotel nights, $54,152,104 economic impact) was third.

Other destinations included Huntsville (76,237 hotel nights and $51,303,193 in economic impact), Montgomery (16,708 and $42,945,604), Auburn/Opelika (22,349 and $35,960,775), Dothan (59,246 and $20,134,876), Tuscaloosa (10,196 and $10,059,292), The Shoals (15,700 and $9,600,000), Decatur/Morgan (4,100 and $7,413,558) and Marshall (9,750 and $5,469,429).

“Sporting events continue to be a major driver for tourism across the state of Alabama and 2024 continued that momentum in a big way with more than $600 million in economic impact going back into our destinations,” said Joel Lamp, Sports Alabama president. “Our member destinations have made significant investments in their facilities, which continue to pay major dividends, not just locally, but by increasing the state’s notoriety with the high caliber events that are choosing to bring their championships to Alabama. There is a tremendous amount of momentum in all of our destinations and I look forward to an even bigger and better year in 2025.”

Some of those facility investments have helped secure 10 NCAA championship events from 2025 to 2028, including the 2027 and 2028 beach volleyball tournaments in Gulf Shores. An 11th was rerouted to Alabama’s Beaches earlier this year when the 2025 beach volleyball championship moved back to Baldwin County in the wake of the Palisades Fire in Southern California.

Other collegiate championships awarded to Alabamian destinations included the 2027 Division II indoor track finals in Birmingham and the 2027 Division II cross country and soccer finals in Huntsville. Regional tournaments are set to be in Auburn (2025 Division I men’s golf, 2028 women’s gymnastics) and Huntsville (2026 Division II cross country, 2027 Division I cross country) in addition to the first two rounds of the 2028 Division I men’s basketball tournament in Birmingham.

“The enthusiasm and interest from around the country to host NCAA championships continues to be a testament to the quality of our events,” Lynda Tealer, NCAA senior vice president of championships, was quoted as saying in the report. “For this cycle we incorporated more data into the process to help our sport and oversight committees through the evaluation and selection of sites as we had so many quality venues and locations looking to host during these two seasons. We will continue to evaluate and gather feedback on going from the traditional four-year cycle to awarding championship bids for two years to determine the right cadence for the bid process in the future.”

Formerly known as the Alabama Sports Initiative, Sports Alabama started in 2006 to assist “members of the Alabama Association of Destination Marketing Organizations (AADMO) participate in sports tradeshows to position Alabama as a unique sports destination,” a March 21 release says. “By helping offset costs and creating promotional marketing collateral for the organization, Sports Alabama allows its members to partner together to attend tradeshows and explore opportunities for future business.”