Daniel A. Rascher, Ph.D.

University of San Francisco

OSKR, LLC

SportsEconomics, LLC

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September 2026

Economic Impact of Youth Soccer Tournaments

Daniel Rascher Biography

• Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley
• Taught at Stanford, Northwestern, Massachusetts, USF
• Over 70 research publications
• Over 200 sports consulting engagements including dozens of economic impact studies of events, teams, and facilities
• Big Events: NBA All-Star Game, NCAA CFB Championship Game, Taylor Swift concert
• Smaller Events: Mt Diablo Half Marathon, SJ Tapestry Arts Festival, SJ Jazz Festival, CAHA hockey tournament (youth)
• Soccer: Earthquakes, USMNT matches, International Friendlies, faculty mentor for youth soccer tournament EI study

Economic Impact Defined

• Net economic change in a host community resulting from spending attributed to an event, facility, or team.
• Note: Measures new economic benefits that accrue to the region that would not have otherwise occurred.
• A version of a cost-benefit analysis. (But-For World)

Purpose – Provide Information to…

• Local residents – income
• Government – tax revenues
• Event owner – value of event
• Host committee – which events to go after
• Facility operator – which events to go after
• Sponsor – nature of participants/spectators

Financial Returns

• For a community:
• Expenditures – spending of money that wouldn’t have been spent otherwise.
• Jobs – full time equivalent (FTE)
• Earnings or income – locals get paid
• Tax revenues – local gov’t gets tax revenues

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• Positive externalities (overflow benefits)
• Benefits that are produced by an event but not captured by the event owners or sport facility
• Restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and so forth
• Local residents – income

Stadiums generate external benefits �that are not captured by the team/stadium

Steps in Measuring Economic Impact

• Define relevant market/geographic area of impact
• Determine incremental visitors
• Analyze direct spending
• Determine indirect and induced spending
• Calculate fiscal impact
• Measure costs

Geographic Market

• There is an actual geographic area of impact
• Depending on who is interested in the question, the area of impact that is relevant to measure might be different. E.g., city, county, state.

Incremental Visitors

• It is very important to be able to determine who is a visitor and who is a local resident.
• Types:
• Casual visitors – in town for other reasons
• Time-switcher visitors – this trip replaces another trip
• Incremental visitors
• Came to town to see game (primary reason)
• Trip did not replace any other trip
• Not a local resident

Incremental Visitors

Analysis of Direct Spending

• “Incremental Visitor” spending:
• What is the amount of spending that goes to LOCAL businesses?
• Organizational spending:
• How much do the event host committee, visiting teams, event management company, corporate sponsors, media covering the event, and others spend LOCALLY?

Surveying of Attendees and Organizations

• Survey teams and families attending the event on their spending in town while at the event
• Lodging, food, shopping, transportation, parking, miscellaneous
• Historically a paper survey or iPad – more expensive to administrate unless event personnel distribute
• Higher response rates with phone/email blast to listserv at the end of the event
• Key organizations (host, league, sponsor, F&B) can be contacted for a simple explanation of what they spent in town that they would not have spent otherwise

Direct and Indirect Effects of Initial Spending

Example of Output, Income, and Employment Multipliers

Example of Applying the Multipliers (Alamo Bowl)

Allocation of Spending by Visitors (sample events)

Calculating Fiscal (Tax) Impact

• Understand the tax code
• Sales, lodging, rental car, F&B, etc.
• Separate tax revenue according to recipient
• Account for tax-exempt spending
• Account for the tax effects of indirect and induced impacts
• Requires information that is not always available

Calculating Costs of Hosting

• If the community benefits from the incremental spending, are there incremental costs to balance that against?
• Security and public safety
• Infrastructure improvements
• Transportation personnel
• Sanitation
• Event operations of city staff time

Thank you

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