GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The upcoming Lambeau Field College Classic is going to mean big business for local tourism.
On September 3rd, the Wisconsin Badgers will square off against the LSU Tigers at Lambeau Field.
“We’re not doing a particular study so basically we’re going off what a home Packer game would be,” says Brad Toll, President and CEO of the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. “However we can pretty safely say it’s going to likely exceed the impact of a home game.”
There’s plenty of evidence already why Toll believes that statement.
“Especially the LSU fans have never been here, so they’re not just coming in for the game, they’re coming Wednesday, Thursday, staying several nights,” Toll says. “Obviously they aren’t just going to sit and look at Lambeau Field. They’re going to be all over our community, enjoying our attractions. We’ve got hotels sold out as far down as Fond du Lac, so they’re going to be enjoying all of Northeastern Wisconsin.”
Tourism officials estimate that the economic impact of a Green Bay Packers home game ranges from $12 million to $13.5 million. However, Toll says Packers games usually mean a two-night stay in the area. The Lambeau College Classic is seeing three and four-night stays being booked, leading to more time and money invested in the visit.
“In this case, it’s basically two visiting teams. Wisconsin is down there in Madison, but a lot of the alumni that are coming are spread from coast to coast. There’s probably quite a few that haven’t been to Lambeau Field so it’s a first-time experience for them,” explains Toll. “We’re fortunate that the LSU Tigers, their alumni and fans, they’re like Packer fans. They travel with their team.”
Toll mentions that his office has received a lot of phone calls about what to do and see while fans are in the region. They’ve created a webpage complete with all the info they need.
GAMEDAY EXPOSURE
From a marketing standpoint, Toll says they’re even more hyped about the news that the popular ESPN show College GameDay has selected Green Bay to broadcast from that morning.
“They come in-and-out of their coverage, those commercial breaks, a lot of times they’ll show different shots of our community,” says Toll. “Just think of the people around the country that are going to be seeing Green Bay on their TV’s that day. The value of that, if we were trying to buy that advertising time, there’s no way we would come even close to buying national coverage like that with our marketing budget.”
According to numbers from the National Football Foundation, ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot averaged 1,961,000 viewers per episode in 2015, the most-watched regular season since the show expanded to three hours in 2013.
“We’ll certainly recommend them some great vantage points to shoot video of our community,” Toll says.
ONE-SHOT DEAL?
Given the excitement surrounding this highly-anticipated Big Ten-SEC matchup on the opening weekend of the 2016 college football season, coupled with the millions of dollars giving a boost to hotels, restaurants and other businesses, there’s one question which comes to mind.
When can we do this again?
“We’ve already had that conversation and Lambeau Field is a football venue and I think they (Packers officials) really enjoy having the college game there,” says Toll. “Every indication we’ve gotten is that they would certainly welcome that opportunity again in the future.”
But Toll cautions that there likely won’t be a 2017 version of the Lambeau Field College Classic.
“I don’t know that doing it every year, you know it starts to lose some of the specialness that comes with doing something like this,” Toll says. “But we would sure like to see every couple of years having an event like this.”
Toll says that while concerts that have been held at Lambeau Field, like Kenny Chesney, have been successful.
“But it’s another 30,000 people for a football game,” remarks Toll. “Lambeau is made for football. If we can do college games like this, I think it’s a beautiful fit for the community.”
The Wisconsin-LSU battle will be featured on ABC at 2:30 p.m.
