Hosting two NCAA Sweet Sixteen games and an Elite Eight contest this weekend could mean a sweet $15 million worth of economic impact for the city of Newark, with a ripple effect that reaches to hotels and businesses in North Jersey.
Hotels in the Meadowlands and elsewhere in North Jersey are housing some of the more than 30,000 fans estimated to be coming to Newark over four days for the games and related festivities. A North Jersey bus company, Wallington-based Saddle River Tours, will be transporting athletes, bands and coaches from Ohio State, Kentucky, Marquette and North Carolina during the tournament. Two games will be played Friday, with the regional final on Sunday.
Jim Murphy, president of Saddle River Tours, said the contract to provide two buses for each school during the tournament not only represents a sizable amount of business “but it’s also very prestigious business. To be working with Seton Hall University, the host of the tournament, and the NCAA, it’s a great honor,” he said. He said the company has also been “getting a lot more calls than we could handle” for transportation for other groups to the games and hotels.
Even though the Izod Center in East Rutherford, which has hosted the NCAA men’s basketball tournament 11 times, didn’t win a chance to host the games, the Meadowlands region will still score economically. Having the NCAA in Newark “is good for the state of New Jersey,” said James Kirkos, chief executive officer of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce. “There will be spillover to the Meadowlands, probably because we have a lot more capacity of hotel rooms and various types of hotels than are immediately available around Newark,” he said.
Some Meadowlands hotels are already sold out because of another sporting event this weekend — the U.S.-Argentina men’s soccer match Saturday evening at the New Meadowlands Stadium, which is expected to attract some 80,000 fans.
While each of the four teams competing at the Prudential Center has been assigned official hotels in and around Newark, alumni and fans of those teams are taking blocs of rooms throughout the region. The Sheraton Lincoln Harbor in Weehawken will be hosting fans from the University of Kentucky. Total Sports Travel, a travel agency based in Alabama, will be flying in 85 Kentucky fans on a charter flight from Lexington today and housing them at the Sheraton. A representative of the agency said Wednesday they didn’t anticipate any problems with the flight because of inclement weather Wednesday and today.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker said his economic development team estimates that hosting the tournament will result in a minimum of $10 million to $15 million in economic impact, with the potential for “a lot more.”
“We’re hopeful it’s going to have a tremendous impact immediately, which produces jobs and expanded economic opportunity for some of our entrepreneurs,” Booker said. “But then the incalculable contribution is how it’s going to continue to thaw that reputational problem we have,” he said. “A successful NCAA tournament is going to help pave the way for future events, and that’s what we call the ultimate multiplier effect of the economic impact.”
Businesses near the Prudential Center are looking for their own “multiplier effects” to boost sales during the tournament weekend, and to win new customers for the longer term.
Hobby’s Delicatessen, which has been on Branford Street for nearly 100 years, will be staying open late tonight and Friday and will open on Sunday. The eatery is trying to come up with a special sandwich for NCAA fans, along with its signature corned beef and pastrami platters.
“To look at the brackets [for the tournament] and see the word Newark? What an absolute thrill,” said Marc Brummer, whose family has owned Hobby’s for 49 years.
The Wyndham Garden at Newark Airport — where the Kentucky players, coaches, and band are staying — decorated its lobby with Kentucky’s school colors of dark blue and white and planned a special welcome for the team when it arrived Wednesday evening. “I’m trying to download their fight song right now and play it over the speakers as they come in,” said Leo Reyes, director of marketing for the hotel, in the midst of preparations Tuesday.
Mitch Cahn, president of a Newark-based manufacturing company, Unionwear, and the head of a group of manufacturers who organized a “Made in Newark” campaign in connection with the tournament, said orders related to the NCAA event have led to $100,000 in business for his company.
Cahn said the campaign has also brought him future clients. Promoting manufacturing in Newark as part of the tournament, with gift bags for visitors and VIPs with “Made in Newark” products such as Manischewitz crackers and a free audio book from Audible.com, has created new relationships that are already producing new sales, Cahn said. His company, for example, found a screen printer based in Newark as a result of the campaign and plans to continue to use that printer, instead of sending that work to Rhode Island or South Jersey.
The arts community in Newark is also piggy-backing on the games to promote itself. New Jersey Performing Arts Center will hold jousting tournaments to draw attention to a production of “Monty Python’s Spamalot’’ at the theater, and a tour of local art galleries is part of the activities organized by the city for visitors.
Both Booker and Jeff Vanderbeek, owner of the New Jersey Devils and chairman and managing partner of Devils Arena Entertainment, the company that operates the Prudential Center, said the real economic impact of the tournament will come when it leads to more high-profile events in Newark. The arena will be vying to host major sporting events like National Hockey League all-star games and college wrestling championships, Vanderbeek said. “Anything’s fair game, and we’re going to be going after them,” he said.
“We think we are not that far away from being able to make pitches for major conventions like the Republican [and] Democratic conventions,” Booker said.
E-mail: verdon@northjersey.com
From www.northjersey.com
