This podcast episode revolves around the ever evolving and increasing trend of sports tourism and its transformative impact on destinations, particularly in Florida. Larry and Mady delve into the art and science of capturing attention within this dynamic field with Sean Doherty, Tourism Executive Director and Sean Walter, Sales/Sports Business Development, Director, both with Punta Gorda/Englewood Beach VCB. We discuss the evolution of sports marketing and the significance of fostering genuine connections with audiences. Our conversation encompasses the substantial investments being made in sports facilities and how these developments are reshaping communities, enhancing their appeal to both participants and spectators alike. We also explore the innovative strategies that destination marketers are employing to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape, aiming to attract diverse sporting events that boost local economies. Through engaging dialogues and expert insights, we provide listeners with actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform their approach to sports tourism and marketing.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• 00:07 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 06:35 - The Evolution of Sports Tourism
• 11:38 - Exploring Punta Gorda's Unique Sports Offerings
• 25:52 - The Rise of Sports Tourism
• 27:53 - The Evolution of Sports Participation
• 40:09 - The Rise of Sports Tourism in Florida
• 46:27 - Collaboration in Sports Events
• 49:44 - Exploring the Beauty of Florida's Destinations
• 53:45 - Exploring Punta Gorda's Culinary Delights

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Aqua Talks endeavors to blend marketing with innovative ideas that resonate profoundly with audiences.
• The podcast emphasizes the importance of meaningful connections in capturing audience attention effectively.
• Engaging discussions and actionable strategies are pivotal for inspiring destination marketers and government contractors alike.
• The evolution of sports tourism indicates a significant shift towards comprehensive support and branding in the industry.
• Florida has experienced a notable surge in sports facility development to attract diverse sporting events.
• Unique sports like pickleball and dog agility are becoming essential elements of the sports tourism landscape in Punta Gorda.

ABOUT THE GUESTS:

Sean Doherty

Sean Walter

Sean started his career out of college at Walt Disney World where he held various positions in operations and sales. He oversaw many facilities including restaurants, hotels, and golf courses and developed a customer service curriculum which he taught at The Disney University. He later expanded his career in the hospitality tourism industry by working for the Bradenton Area Convention & Visitors Bureau operating their convention center, 23- fields multipurpose sports complex and large historic event center. After booking many sporting events, Sean shifted his role into Sports Sales and Business Development with the Bradenton Area CVB for 12 years. Upon seeing the potential and current growth plan in expanding hotels, development and sports facilities in Charlotte County, Sean took a position as the Business Development Director for the Punta Gorda/Englewood Beach Visitors Bureau. He has been the Business Development Director for five years overseeing sports, leisure and the meetings group sales departments partnering with many organizations, meeting planners and industry partners to highlight the amazing assets the destination offers to these groups and their attendees.

Welcome to Aqua Talks where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Hi, welcome back to Aqua Talks.

My name is Maddie and this is a podcast for marketers.

Whether you're just getting started out or you are a pro within the marketing industry, we are a Brensis Technology LLC powered podcast and as usual, I'm Jo by my co host Larry Aldridge.

Hello, I'm Larry Aldridge, President CEO of Aqua Marketing Communications.

Today we're here with Sean and Sean.

So we're looking forward to having a good conversation with them.

And let's first before we jump into the conversation, we usually start off with a trend or a special topic that might be top of mind for you.

Usually it could be anything you want that you wanted to just maybe start off a conversation with.

So let's look at destination trends.

Could be sports can be anything.

So is there anything you want to just jump into?

Yeah, I mean as far as sports trends, there's a myriad of them.

It's crazy how far sports tourism has gone.

It used to be, I laugh, I've been doing this 20 years.

It used to be, what fields do you have, what amenities can you help me with to put a sport in your destination?

Now it's grown as large as what is the support your convention visitors, beer offers, what type of financial support, what type of hotels do you have, what branding of hotels.

So there's a lot more to it, a lot more kind of pieces of the puzzle, if you will.

So we've seen that lately and that's something that we gotta kind of become experts at in a little bit of everything now, not just sponsoring event and showing them a field.

So it's really grown and we see that people don't have it as side hustles anymore.

These are major organizations and conglomerations that are doing this and they're putting directors in place, PR managers managers, social media managers, and even marketing managers just for that one specific event, whether it's a state, national or regional event.

So that will give you some insight into what we're going to be talking about.

But I would love for you both also to introduce yourselves.

Sure, absolutely.

Sean?

Yeah, sure.

I'm Shawn Daugherty.

I've been the director of the tourism Director for the Punta Gordon Wood Beach Visitor and Convention Bureau for the last five years.

Prior to that, I served in Sean's current role as the Sports Business Development Director for Big Shoes to Fill.

Doing a great job.

But prior to that I worked in New Orleans for the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation.

And that was ideal because there I was able to work on a variety of events, both big and small.

So we hosted Super Bowl, Final Fours and things of that nature, but also hosted a lot of your more youth, amateur type sports, USA Volleyball Championships and really just about anything you can host in the city of New Orleans.

So really got my feet wet there before moving back to Florida.

Really wanted to come back to Florida and found a great place down in southwest Florida to really start from, really from the ground up, because I got there right after Hurricane Charlie had come through and kind of devastated the area.

So over these past 20 years, I've really been able to see the growth of the destination from a lodging standpoint, a sport venue standpoint and everything.

So it's really gotten us to a point where we can really, really go after some of these events that we couldn't before.

Amazing.

And I started my career right out of college with Walt Disney World.

It gave me an opportunity really to see the volume of events.

You know, they really train you on the logistics, the safety, the ingress, the egress, the customer service, feeding mass amounts of people, whether that's private dinners for coaches or VIPs.

From there I moved back to my and worked up to a county north of where I'm at now.

I oversaw the convention center and event center.

And then from there there were some dark days in the, in the convention center where there were no events on weekends.

So I went after the USA Wrestling, USA Dance and cheer, a couple jiu jitsu and some fencing.

And I think my boss saw that I was able to kind of leverage some sports and some opportunities.

So he asked me if I'd move in and kind of be a sports commissioner at that point.

With that I also oversaw Premier Sports Campus is a 23 field campus with a stadium.

So the kind of the job went hand in hand.

After being up there for 12 years, I was real excited that Sean got promoted because it's an opportunity for me and he and I to work together.

We've been working together on the road probably for the past 12, 15 years, but the last five years in Punta Gordon Angwood Beach, I've absolutely loved it and really enjoy what I do down there.

I'm a Sports guy and Matty balances me out.

So we started talking sports.

We don't need to introduce ourselves.

Let's just jump right in.

Love it.

And I like all of that.

Jiu jitsu, tennis, golf.

Yes.

I could sit and watch ants race if somebody can promote it.

Same here.

Same here.

And it's crazy because that's how it's kind of the trend has become.

You know, the baseball numbers have gone down with youth playing baseball because they're doing videos.

Esports is huge in our world now, attracting people, destination.

So, you know, any sport like that has become popular.

You've seen that on ESPN and CBS Sports.

What's on there?

Yeah, the VA has a program, Mount egaming for veterans.

So it's really popular, it's fun and it's easy to get involved.

And also.

And I believe you have something similar with E gaming.

You know, we try to do esports.

It's kind of a good and bad thing.

It's grown so large that our event center, conference and event center is too small at this point.

We looked at some regional opportunities, but they're looking at, believe it or not, 100,000 square foot, which is your Tampa Convent Center.

It's your larger cities so kind of outgrown us.

So again, that's part of that shifting and what we need to do and be viable and kind of quick on our feet to figure out what the best asset is for our destination.

So you touched on this a little bit earlier, but we have seen a trend, a major shift towards destinations, investing in sports tourism recently with a build it and they will come mentality.

What do you think is driving this surge in sports facility development across destinations, but especially Florida.

I'd hand that to Sean first because he, coming from New Orleans has seen that it's already built and big and now you can even experience.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we're seeing that all throughout the state.

I mean, I think last time we checked there was like about 20 different destinations just in the state of Florida that either have recently built something or are in the process of building a multi sport type complex that is primarily for the purposes of bringing in those out of area tournaments prior to that.

And what we're still having to deal with is working hand in hand a lot with our local parks and rec departments because a lot of the facilities we use are county facilities.

So with that you got to kind of work around the local leagues and other challenges that come with that.

If they're having staffing issues and things of that nature, you can run into issues in terms of being able to bring in as much as you would have been able to bring in.

But now with these, you know, these big facilities coming in that a lot of them will partner with a local management, or not a local management, but a management company that will actually run the the facility year round separate from the parks and rec facility.

And then you're all on the same page.

You're all trying to bring in sporting events from outside the area that are going to generate that economic impact.

So.

Yeah, so right now we're kind of, you know, caught right there where we're trying to get to that next stage.

We did have a opportunity that came up not too long ago where there was a defunct golf course that we are to get the county to buy and that deal kind of fell through.

At least for right now it has.

So we're trying to figure out an opportunity down the road here because we are definitely seeing that as a trend and you know, we don't want to fall behind that trend.

Yeah, yeah.

And along with that Florida trend comes conglomerations wanting a new audience.

So we're seeing the publics of the world put stamp their name on youth, amateur.

You know, we all know they're going to professional look at a Legionnaire Legion stadium out where the Raiders are in Vegas.

But we're starting to see other companies put their name because they can capture new audience, whether that's new eyeballs on their brand, whether that's new email blasts with their name or sponsorship on it.

So we're starting to see that.

So counties are realizing that there could be an offset financially of having a sponsor come in.

It's a public private relationship where maybe a private entity wants the land and maybe government could offer it at cheaper value.

But that partnership only drives business to our destination.

Heads and beds and eyeballs on the destination.

So it is a big trend.

Yeah.

And part of that partnership that can come out of it too is you can even partner with one of these event organizers.

So say Perfect Game Baseball is looking to expand and all and you're getting ready to build a facility.

They could come to the table and say hey, if you maybe put some offices in there for us or this or that, a few other little amenities.

We'll have a little head, a mini headquarters there and we'll guarantee you X number of tournaments a year that will go into that facility.

So there's that partnership as well.

Yeah.

Speaking of that, with the current sports tourism and the landscape of the sports tourism, what differentiates destinations that are truly trying to win at that as opposed to the ones that are just building new facilities.

I think it starts with getting full buy in at every level.

So like I was talking about before, you know, we work a lot with our parks and rec department which is a department of the county government and everything.

So we really need to have everybody at, you know, from the county commissioners to county administration to the parks and rec department, our department, everybody bought in on.

On doing this from a resources standpoint, whether it's financial resources, staffing, equipment, whatever it might need to make those things happen.

I think it really starts with there.

You know, if you just build it, you know.

Yeah, they'll want to come.

But can they come if you're not all, you know, all in all on board?

Yeah.

And I think another aspect of that is the people, you know, when we go out on the road to sell it's they may not have seen Punta Gordon Anglo beach or trusting me.

So it takes a while to get that trust with your client.

A lot of times it's really easy for me to refer to you remember Sean Daugherty?

He was selling the destination.

So connecting that, that helps too.

The buy in and then once they're down when they come to our host hot and they look at attractions, they're greeted with a smile and customer service saying this is a really nice community.

I want to come down here.

This could be successful for me to put an event here.

So it is about the people too.

Start with the buy in and then if the people are also all throughout buying in and really looking to do it.

So let's talk about Punta Gorda, Englewood Beach's bread and butter.

I know we have the Charlotte Sports park where the Rays do their spring training and it's also award winning.

USA Today named it one of its best spring training facilities.

But PGB also has really unique sports that you focus on.

So pickleball, dog agility, cheer and dance, golf.

Cornhole.

We have a big cornhole competition.

Yeah.

Cornhole's $169 million industry.

We're lucky to have a piece of it.

We do and it drives business on shoulder months which is kind of off peak season where we're looking to fill and fill the hotels and we do that in June was July kind tapers back June July able to fill our event center and play there as well as it's livestream at one of our.

It's a Sheraton four points in the back.

They have a nice little harborside gardens but it's live Streamed on their Facebook page and then picked up throughout.

For American Cornhole Organization, we have a pro invitational where people from international come over.

So big exposure on our destination, and that's big.

You mentioned pickleball.

We do 16, 18 events a year there.

We did the association of Pickleball Professionals, which was one of the larger ones that kind of grew our facility, unfortunately.

And that happened.

Happens a lot.

But we've got a pipeline of other events coming in that was the championship was showcased on ESPN U and then also CBS Sports.

So again, great exposure for the destination.

Now we've filled it with ppa, Pickleball Professional Association, a lot of acronyms, a lot of P's.

And we created a live stream platform for the new Challenger series.

We were the first one to host their Challenger series.

We got 550 athletes.

They had 200 on a waiting list.

So we'll get 700, 800 athletes.

You know, kind of going back to them and saying, again, an event isn't enough for us.

Fill in the hotel rooms.

How do we showcase the destination?

They did live stream and we're able to put a little commercial, which I know you guys have helped us with and create.

So just some great opportunities with unique sports.

The American Kennel Club, they came down and I had an opportunity to kind of show them around.

And not many destinations have what we have.

We have an indoor 5,000 square foot dog agility space, outdoor dock diving, and then a race run, they call it.

It's a long run for dogs.

So we're able to three different events at one time simultaneously.

The neat thing about the dog racing is the people that are good at it are all over the country.

So they'll fly in from New York, Chicago, California just to participate.

So that's really helped us out.

So you just got to get a little creative.

And what's in our destination?

Yeah.

And jumping back to pickleball real quick, Sean mentioned that the app outgrew our facility, but I would also make the argument too that they helped to grow our facility.

So we started off with 16 quarts.

The pickleplex.

Yep, the Pickleplex of Punta Gorda started with 16 quarts.

And it got to where app came in early on and they said, you know what, we've got a waiting list of like 300 people.

You know, we're gonna have to go somewhere else if you can't add some more courts.

So, you know, and that's a private public relationship that we have kind of with Pickleplex.

They're, they're A non profit organization that handles all that.

They were able to round up the money and everything and get add the additional eight courts to it.

So APB came back for a few years and they outgrew that too.

But it did give us at least that minimum number of courts now that most tournaments are looking for, which is 24.

So you know, hopefully down the road, I think it is in their plans down in the future to add even more courts.

So that'll help us to kind of keep up.

But without having them help us grow the facility, even though they ended up ultimately outgrowing it, we wouldn't have gotten to where we are right now.

Yeah, totally.

And I'll tell you one thing about the app partnership.

I use it as a resume.

I'm able to go out and say we hosted the app for five years.

So then they open their eyes, oh, wow, what is this place?

Because they're so well known, they were one of the first ones to do the professional series, which is great.

Pickleball is very hot right now.

And I have to say the dog agility, that's my kind of sports.

I want to go to that.

Yeah, I get jealous watching them jump in the water when it's 89 degrees out.

We were, when we first came in, we were talking about golf and you, you mentioned a lot of the great courses that you have there.

And I was thinking about that when, when we were talking, you know, me getting back into a golf, a lot of guys out there in golf, but something that like a lot of the beautiful gems of Florida that a lot of people really just not the first thing you think of because everyone's thinking of the big cities.

Sure.

And when I came down, I was flying down on a plane when I was traveling and coming into Tampa and I was talking to a bunch of guys that knew each other and it was like 80 of them.

And every year they fly to Tampa during the super bowl and that's their guys weekend to go play golf at all the courses around Tampa and watch the Super Bowl.

I recently joined an organization over the summer where it's a bunch of guys travel all over, meet, they live all over and then they meet at certain places to play golf at these certain locations.

But when you think about it, talking to them, it was Tampa, it was Pittsburgh, it was Phoenix.

But there's all these gems like Chicago, Edenwood beach, where that would be a great target to draw these groups of men and women that want that getaway golfing where they can go to a.

Couple different courses Absolutely, you're absolutely right.

And we're blessed to have Sunseeker resort.

It's a 790 sun, 785.

I'll never get that right.

785 room resort that was just bought by Hilton.

It's a Hilton Curo collection.

They own their own golf course.

And we're blessed to have them because that's exactly what they're attracting with our leisure department at the visitors bureau is golf outings for either guys, girls, couples.

And it's really neat because you have Sunseekers a home base.

They can go on the Aileron course and go up to Riverwood up the road, which is a nationally well known course in Punta Gordon beach, or travel anywhere within the destination, come back to home base at Sunset Seeker and they're paying the tourism tax, which we love.

But you're absolutely right.

Believe it or not, when you get a lot of high level golf courses, it's sometimes hard to bring in events because you displace memberships.

So you got to look at certain times of year.

We were fortunate to put the American Junior Golf association championship at Aileron, which is obviously owned by Sunseeker.

It was a great partnership, great time of year and that has grown.

We even had the benefit of kind of passing along to them.

We'd love to be a part of it, but we want live streaming commercial to show the destination versus just a golf course.

They've never done that before.

So they got with their communications and marketing team and contacted us and said, here's what we're thinking, what do you think?

And long story short, we said just like the pros, follow the last championship group, maybe get some great shots and putts over the weekend, make a B roll collaboration and house it on your website.

So we're very happy and proud that that happened.

And they're coming back their second year in May, but like you said, just kind of having that again as that resume as a golf destination.

That even helps people come in and learn more about golf.

And Sean's been doing that, you know, as far as golf tourism, he was in the leisure and doing that even prior to me getting there.

So I'm sure you could.

Well, one point I would, I would make to that too.

And it doesn't just go for golf, but it's really the sports market in general is a lot of times it can serve as that visitor's first touch point with your destination.

You know, there's tournament going on that their kids gonna play in.

Well, they don't have a choice on where they're going.

They gotta go where the tournament's being played.

So they come into town, they experience the destination because usually there's some downtime between games or whatever, or they decide to stay an extra day or two to where they can really fully experience the destination, everything.

And then they become a repeat visitor when they come back on a leisure vacation.

And hopefully they become a regular, regular repeat visitor over and over and over.

But a lot of times people were first exposed to our destination because they came in town for a sporting event or maybe it was a meeting or conference, something that they were required to come to.

And maybe never would have picked us off a map, you know, but yeah.

So we always look at benefits of sports that way too.

There's a story.

I met a young lady who was the mom out in American Junior golf, and her daughter was 14 and they were from China.

And she had said, my husband always goes, but he made me go.

And I was kicking and screaming, I don't like this.

I don't want to be part of it.

It stresses me out.

But she said, but I found Sunseek will be back because I'm in charge of the family vacation.

So it's kind of neat to hear that, that what we do is working, you know, really, really experience that.

So that was kind of fun to see.

I know you two are all too familiar with leisure travel.

Is there a special, fun, buzzy word for sports tourism and staying travel?

We can make one up.

I don't know, but we'll work on that.

I will say this, though, you know, so I. I just like Sean.

Our kids are involved heavily in sports.

I did travel softball with my daughter forever.

She got a college scholarship, football, baseball.

So when we were in destinations, we would look up youth sports.

If my daughter found USA softball was playing in a vacation spot, she'd want to go down to the local park and watch it.

So it's kind of neat that that happens a little bit when you see the park.

I even get ideas of other stuff.

Boy, that's a great idea to have the restrooms up front or in each corner.

So then developing parks.

I can think of it.

So having an experience of being there and doing it.

I was able to talk to our tourist development council and explain to them I'm firsthand spent money to go on a family vacation in Mississippi, New Orleans and even Atlanta for 10 days because my daughter played softball, my son played lacrosse.

So I experienced spending three meals a day in the airfare and getting in the airports and all that money to make a family vacation revolve around youth sports.

So it's kind of cool that we experience it and we do it for a living.

Well, congratulations to your kids.

Oh, thank you.

That's great.

Shawn, I know your daughter play soccer, right?

Yeah, My youngest is a senior in high school right now, so I've gone through some of the same stuff, experiencing it firsthand myself.

You know, we were up in Myrtle beach not long ago for one of her tournaments and all.

And you know, even though I was very much aware of Myrtle Beach, I hadn't been there in a long time.

And it's changed quite dramatically from last time I was there to where now.

You know, when we went, I said to my wife on the way back, I go, we need to, to build this into a future vacation.

Because I liked it a lot more than I had remembered the time before I went.

It just wasn't.

Wasn't the same thing.

Yeah, I remember went from aau, was really popular in sports and now it's becoming like you were saying, just tournaments.

They're organizations that are putting tournaments together and they're traveling like softball for men, mostly young girls.

Sure.

And then because the young boys still like to play baseball.

And I know there's a friend of mine, his son played in a tournament in Disney.

And are there softball baseball facilities that can facilitate traveling sports?

Yeah, absolutely.

We're blessed to have what's called Carmelita Park.

It's 5, 300 foot softball fields.

4, 301, 280.

That's great for adult softball.

As you had said, as they get older, the kids get older even.

I mean, we have people 70, 80 years old playing.

However, we put temporary fencing up and utilize it for fast pitch softball.

So that that way you have one complex that can attract different.

We always remember that we love the 8, 10 year old and 12 year old because grandma and grandpa come, the siblings come.

When they drive 17, 18 playing our Snowbird baseball classic.

They're college kids.

The parents will travel every now and then, but it might be one parent or maybe just the two and the siblings won't.

So we know that if we can take a facilitator complex and do myriada sports at different levels, different male, female, whatever the case may be, even co ed, we can utilize that facility a little bit more productive way.

Yeah, I went to a friend of mine, was a chief of police out in a couple towns outside of Pittsburgh and every year they would play in a law enforcement world series in Vegas.

Oh yeah.

And they would have, they would have.

It was all police officers, sheriffs, all of those.

And they would have their own teams and they would come from all over the country.

Yeah, I went a few times.

That was a pretty fun time watching those guys play softball.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I was in, before I had my job in New Orleans, I was, worked for the Gainesville Sports Commission in Gainesville, Florida for a couple years.

And we did host the Florida law.

It was the Florida Law Enforcement games.

And yeah, that was, that was great.

I mean, had so many different sports.

And they did, they came from all over the state, you know, because it was the state games.

But, you know, I got the opportunity because they needed a fourth for one of the golf teams.

So I got to play with the, the Miami Dade police officers.

And they were, they were, they were a.

To play with and all.

But yeah, they loved it.

They loved doing that.

And I mean, and getting an event like that, multi sport event like that every year would be awesome.

Yeah.

You know, and I think the coolest thing about it is, as Sean said, it's eyeballs in the destination.

It's the wives are out shopping, going to dinner, come back and watch.

Maybe the husbands play and say, we're coming back here with the kids or hey, this could be our second honeymoon.

So tourism, especially sports, really drive people like Shannon said that don't really know about it, maybe don't want to go there.

We've heard people on the east coast of Florida say, I've never been to the west coast, it's gorgeous over here.

So that'll just change their mind and kind of open their eyes.

Sports brings people together.

Sports, team, sports.

Tourism brings people to destinations, destinations that they may have never heard of or never seen.

And they get there and they're like, wow.

And memories.

I love going out to the parks on weekends.

I'll meet with the client and I'll stand and watch and see the mom high five their daughter or the sibling or lift them up, they hit a home run.

And that's us creating memories for people, which is really cool too.

Yeah.

And with that, sports tourism, you bring all of these people to this, that's a destination.

And then they're at a restaurant watching the game or at a restaurant having a party.

And they just created like the restaurant.

Didn't think it was gonna be a busy night.

Sure.

There's a softball tournament or a soccer tournament in town.

Yeah.

And the parents are there and they just made it a big party for the whole week.

And everyone's running out of food and drinks.

Yeah, we actually hear about the uniforms that, oh, there's a girls soccer team or I saw the guys in cleats or.

So that's how we hear about it.

So, yeah, it's great.

It's always a good, fun time, and.

It creates those memories, for sure.

If you could think about, or let's just say, predict the next big sports trend, what do you think it could be?

Other than pickleball or.

Yeah, who would have thought that?

How many years ago?

You know, we.

I find the trends in sports tourism really follow the Olympic games closely.

Whatever's throwing Olympic games, that's when the rights holders and the event organizers, I think, know they can make money.

Attic is popular.

So that's part of it.

The other part is the obscure sports that are a little bit different.

More mind sports.

Sean and I were talking about this on the way up here, that it's not as big of a team.

13 people on a baseball team.

It's pickleball.

Two people.

Maybe it's a single player.

It's golf, it's one.

It's cornhole.

It's two people.

So we're finding that when kids are now on social media more, in my opinion, they see different sports.

We have a thing, a sport now that is out there.

God escapes my name, but it's just like basketball, but you don't dribble.

Handball.

Whereas handball when I was a kid was you hit the ball with your hand across a wall.

This is basketball that you throw the ball to each other, there's no dribbling, and then you throw it in a goal, like soccer.

So kids are playing that maybe they're not as coordinated as you would in basketball.

It's a lot harder to dribble a ball and move it around.

So they play that sport.

Another one, catch ball.

It's volleyball.

But instead of spiking it and setting the ball three times, you throw it to your players and then jump up and throw it.

So maybe it just gets more people open their eyes that I want to be part of that sport, I want to play it.

But you know what?

Dribbling ball is a little harder for me.

Or, you know, so.

So maybe that's what attracts me.

It makes you wonder what role pickleball actually had in creating modifications of other sorts.

Absolutely.

That's really what pickleball is.

When it first came out, people would say, what's pickleball?

And I'd say, well, it's kind of like a cross between tennis and.

And.

And table tennis.

So Just imagine you're standing on a table tennis thing, but it's, it's in between the two, you know, that kind of thing.

But, but I wonder how much pickleball kind of played into that where it's like, why does volleyball have to be this way?

You know, some people, you know, they can't jump high and everything and spike, so they don't want to play it.

Right.

Okay, well let's change, change it up a little bit.

We can make it a different game while you're doing it this way.

That's a great point.

So yeah, yeah, I'll throw one out.

When you brought up the Olympics was actually made me think of it.

And then I saw a tournament on ESPN one time and it can be men, women's youth, adult.

I'm thinking six on six or seven on seven.

Flag football.

Yeah, that's gotten popular and gained traction for one reason in my opinion is the NFL has bought into that.

There's NFL flag football.

They looked at how are we going to, you know, they got a bad rap about concussions for years.

How can we create that grassroots effort and continue that out there in that exposure?

So if you see it on espn, they have the NFL ex players play, the alumni play a game and they're all, you know, six, five, six, seven, catching a ball, running and bumping.

And kids are like, hey, I could do that.

I could run and catch a pass.

Because we all did it as a kid in the front yard.

If you think about it, putting the pads on gets a little scarier for kids.

And then technique and you need to be in a certain place, there's rules to it.

Flag football's a little bit looser.

And I think that's something that the NFL saw as grassroots out effort.

Spun other leagues off of it.

So it is popular for us.

We actually host Florida flag football.

We had US flag football or us, I'm sorry, US Youth flag football.

But the things we run into and we always talk about the differences, there is competition out there.

There's other counties that create competition.

So if we have fields that are split up a little bit where you have four flag here, two there, we got a county south of us says I have eight or 10 in one area.

You don't have to go anywhere.

We got the restrooms, we got the concessions.

So to an event organizer, it makes more sense, it's more productive, it's less expensive to have people spread out.

Maybe insurance is cheaper.

It's one location.

So we do contend against that.

And that was one of the reasons we did end up losing it.

And you got to backfill with the other kind of obscure sports that make the difference.

For sure.

It's only a matter of time before there are breakdancing competitions in Punnecord High.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That is so true.

And another thing that's kind of neat is I looked at artistic swimming.

Now they went to the Olympics and they won, I think a silver or bronze, which they've never done, which is amazing.

And Adam, who's their CEO, we've known for a while, moved around.

He was at field hockey.

And when I approached him, he said it's a grassroots effort so much that I have to have a club in your town.

There's a club north of us that support it.

Whenever there's a club in town that are practicing every week, that means parents are behind, people know about the sport, it's in the newspaper.

And we didn't have a club, so we weren't able to host it.

Someday we hope we get a club.

I think that's what's important in our world is staying in touch with the right people.

Because we may have a club and may be able to host it, but not every sport that's kind of off the wall can you host because you don't have that club supporting it or that buy in at that point, you.

Know, and to kind of touch on the swimming component to it.

So in the past, we, until a few years ago, we didn't have a 50 meter pool, so we weren't able to do much in terms of swimming events.

But when we finally got one, one of the things that we've been able to do, which is kind of out of the box, is that we'll host some of the collegiate teams up north for their winter training.

You know, they let a lot of them come down to Florida all over to do their winter training.

And they're.

They're in town for, you know, 10 days to two weeks.

Yeah.

And some of these teams are bigger than I thought.

You know, they swim.

It's their swimming and diving teams and everything.

So you got their whole entourage that they bring, their coaches and trainers and all those types.

And for them to be down here, usually it's late December, early January.

And that kind of fits in well for us when we kind of have a little bit of a void in there where tourism is a little soft right around that time period.

And to bring in those groups is great.

And it's not a tournament, it's not a competition necessarily.

Although you can Develop a competition, friendlies and all.

But that's not the main point of it.

And also it's kind of of thinking a little bit outside that box of just your traditional tournament type play.

Yeah.

And I think the cool thing is the first thing the coach said is I gotta feed these kids three meals a day.

What do you recommend?

So, you know, I always feel we connect the dots.

So I'll connect the dots for group dining or great opportunity.

And to me that's money to my ears.

And swimmers eat a lot, don't they?

Oh man, do they ever.

Yeah, 5,000 calories, it seems.

And another, another, I guess overlay to all of the sports that you just mentioned and everything.

Being a veteran organization that we are and we do outreach to the veterans and we work with the va, we contract with them, are the partnering with the VA because they do this to have a lot of those same sports tournaments, projects that you have going on, sponsored by the VA for veterans, men and women veterans.

Can I just add really quick though, which is that Punta Gorda, Englewood beach is a great destination for veterans to visit because you have the Military Heritage Museum.

Yeah.

And your Purple.

Your Purple Heart community.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny is I was so excited to go on the road and talk that to veterans Games it's called.

But they get 10 to 20,000 athletes.

So that is one of those that are going to fit in the Orlando, Chicago, Miami.

I still continue to have conversations about can you do regional, a state, a qualifying.

They haven't got to that level yet.

But.

But that's just so cool to see how much buy in for something like that to support the veterans and allow them to come together.

Camaraderie.

I mean to have that many people show up is amazing.

But it is a big support throughout the country.

They move.

There is a. I forget the name of the games in Orlando they had that was quite large.

But we do support veterans.

We're really big in it when we bring in other events that could be adult softball.

There are times we have conversations with our veterans department about do you want to be on hand and talk about our community?

But yeah, it's a great, great synergy for sure.

And throw in a little bit, you know, have your military recruiters there also.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yep.

And I'll tell you, we do find that people when they host events, they love their three day weekends.

That's the biggest thing we look at our calendar is what three day weekend.

So Veterans Day is big.

If they ever do anything Veterans Day.

They do a salute to veterans.

They give money back to veterans.

So we absolutely love that time of year to host a different event that isn't veterans only playing in it, but it does revolve around and support them.

You know, that is a good example of what I was talking about before, about people coming to destination the first time because of an event.

So if we could get a good veterans event there, like Matty pointed out, we have one of the best military museums in the state.

We've got one of only, I think, five or six cities in the country that have a replica of Vietnam Mall and other things too.

All the other kind of activities that veterans tend to like to do.

Some of the best fishing, golf, and other things like that.

So, yeah, that could be definitely a catalyst if we were able to get a veterans event and to have those people become regular leisure visitors.

Yeah, it's not really a sport, but we did was like a bike fest where it brought in, I think, 500 riders and they were all veterans.

They got an opportunity to go up to Twisted Fork, which is a great venue in our.

In our town.

Like motorcycles.

Yeah, Motorcycle riding.

And it was neat because we had the 500 motorcycle riders.

They did a little parade and celebration and music.

Again, not quite a sporting event, but an event.

So that's kind of fun to see.

Yeah, I worked with some veteran events, veteran organizations that were veterans that would ride their bike from last I spoke with them, they rode from Cleveland to Texas.

Wow, that's fun.

That is neat.

Neat to see.

And that was to raise money for furniture to put in veteran housing.

Is that right?

Wow, that is really cool to see like that, Sean.

So I would.

Oh, which one?

Sean?

Dy.

Sean's.

Well, Sean Daugherty.

I'd like to ask about how probably when you were working in sports tourism, maybe in New Orleans, only 18 counties had sports development person on staff.

Tell us about the shift between then and now.

Like how.

What's this.

And then, like, what's the secret to standing out when everyone's playing in the same arena?

No pun intended, right?

Yeah, it's.

It is.

Has increased the competition, obviously, going from where.

There were only 18 counties in the state of Florida that really proactively went out there.

Sporting events, you know, there might have been where a sporting event wanted to come somewhere and they get hooked up somewhere with the cvb, but it wasn't a sports development person with the cvb.

They might have just helped them out with the hotel rooms and things of that nature.

But now that we've gotten up to where there's 37, yeah, it's difficult.

It makes it more and more challenging to kind of stand out.

So that's one of the tracks we've taken, is to go after some of those non traditional sports and, and where we can stand out with our dog agility facility, our pickleplex, you know, things of that nature.

We've got the second largest fishing estuary in the state of Florida.

So going after fishing tournaments, things of that nature, golf, you know, we talked about that a little bit.

So it's doing that.

But also we do have a spring training facility.

So that's why we're still kind of in the mix for baseball.

A lot of times that we can kind of sell that facility even though we don't have access to, to it year round because the raised do during, especially during that window of time right before, during and after spring training.

We do leverage that any way we can to kind of say, hey, this makes us stand out.

Because there's only a small number of communities in the whole state of Florida and state of Arizona that actually have facilities of that quality and everything that you can actually use.

Well, we haven't even been able to have baseball here.

Yeah.

Because of the hurricane.

Yeah.

And you know, it's, it's, it's easy for me to go out, out of our destination and go to baseball entities and say you could play like the big leagues at, you know, the race sports park, which is Charlotte Sports Park.

We've run and operated, Sean said, but home in Tampa Bay Race spring training, once they hear that, they say, can you get me in there?

Like it's a big secret.

Well, we'll look at dates.

But yeah, I got to at least talk to them.

But so it's kind of fun that we're able to have that cache when we go out.

And there's other destinations in Florida.

Who said that, that I'm so jealous you have that, that asset.

So that is nice, as Sean said, because it drives tourism too.

Come watch the game.

Not just play the sport, but obviously come watch the game, which is nice.

We've noticed too, with the trend of adding a person, they know that they need to add that person for a while, but once that person gets situated in a year, you're going to need more assets for that person.

So.

So the county grows with that person in that developmental opportunity or role, if you will.

So a lot of counties have put reserves away, they've added extra penny tax to build facilities.

We talked earlier the build it, they will come.

That does work in sports tourism because we're finding organizations want everything under one roof.

We have amazing brand new basketball courts.

We have five of them.

One has a double court.

However, you can go to Orlando, Lakeland, Sarasota and get eight to ten under one building.

And that's.

It's easier for them to manage.

It's easier than the track.

So there's just a lot of those moving parts.

And even though there's been more competition for us, you know, the state of Florida has really upped its game to where just I guess it was last year or year before we jumped up to number one in terms of the amount of sports tourism business being driven to the state.

I think overall, I think there's $128 billion that spent on sports tourism and that doesn't count like professional sports games and stuff like that.

It's all that amateur sports travel stuff.

So out of that 128 billion, Florida gets the is in the number one position.

We always flip flop from Texas, California.

We've never been number one.

So we became number one in 24.

Yeah, that was really neat.

And that's part of now there's 37 people doing it.

So obviously it's going to produce more events, you know, and I talked to some colleagues that are from pure Michigan or Virginia and we're so blessed to have sports year round.

They don't baseball shuts down and then they got to go into the hockey and other stuff.

Whereas we're blessed to have year round conversation about bringing your event in no matter what sport it is.

And I would also point out that we have a really close knit relationship with all the other Florida sports commissions.

We work very well together in the sandbox.

So it's not.

We don't view each other as.

We do view each other as competition, but not, not cutthroat type competition.

It's you know, if, if we can't host something, we don't just send the guy on his way.

It's like, hey, I can't do that event because such and such.

But you know who you should talk to is, you know, Sarasota county has a great facility for that and keep it in Florida.

Yeah, we want to keep it in Florida, Southwest Florida even better.

And you know, ultimately that might come around later that we can get the event or, or in another way that we've had that happen for us.

We where one of Our neighbors couldn't host an event and they've referred them to us.

So I think we're blessed from that standpoint too that we do have that.

Because not all states are like that at all.

No.

We've asked colleagues from Michigan.

Two of them do you know so and so.

Yeah, I don't talk to them at all.

Whereas like, wow, we're best friends.

And that's the neat thing is you can pick up the phone and say, you hosted this 10 years ago.

What'd you think?

What would you do differently?

Because we put in what's called bids for RFPs, requests for proposals for events.

If we know that a neighboring destination in Florida, our friends hosted it, we'll pick up the phone and call them.

So it's a, it's a great opportunity to kind of network and get some synergy and understand the event.

So thinking of a case study, if you can, if you can find one case study that sticks out that you'd like to talk about, what would that be?

You know, I.

An interesting.

I don't know if I can call it started as a case study and now it's moved on.

Is.

Is we're seeing a lot of large, well known youth organizations in the country that dominate the sport, say baseball, softball.

They're starting to collaborate a little more and talk to each other.

Baseball's saying, hey, we've got all the guys and the boys, but we want the girls too.

How could your softball entity work with us?

So we're seeing them have conversations at different levels.

We, as I said earlier, the publics of the world and the different companies, maybe a large car manufacturer, they want to get in front of new eyeballs they never have before.

So how do you do that?

It's through youth sports.

You not only have the kids growing up needing cars, insurance, you have the parents, you have the grandparents.

So you have that audience that you've never seen before.

So I've really seen that develop and mesh.

We have a couple, four probably big entities right now in the sports world that are working together and going in destinations they've never been able to get get in before.

So to me that's kind of a neat trend.

It's kind of, is it getting out of control and conglomerations buying each other up.

It's a lot of the grassroots I think we started.

Sean said it was a side hustle on the job.

The husband or wife had fun, they love their kid, played softball.

I have a softball tournament three times a year.

Then I made it a national One and then a regional.

Next thing you know, they get big enough, they get bought out by the big dogs.

So we're seeing a lot of more control at the top.

And the bigger dogs.

I think the key is continually having those conversations, collaborating with them, that we may be too small of a destination at this point, but things could always change.

So that's one thing that's fascinating to me is seeing people that it's their professional job making six figures and these corporations are working together to get a different audience.

I don't know if anything you could share that.

That's great.

That's exactly.

It is really neat to see, I think.

How about a campaign that you've worked on in sports tourism that you're very proud of?

You know, I think a camp.

There's two campaigns.

One Sean brought up was we.

I collaborated and I think you did.

Even when it started, prior to me getting there was building those pools.

We collaborated with our parks department on how do we fill these pools in a downtime.

So bringing in these NCAA teams, rotating, we could do five to seven.

And the ncaa, there was collaboration.

We created a brochure and left the parks use at our parks department.

The director's an ex swimmer in the family, so they had a lot of contacts, sent the arbochers off to those people.

We've got a mailing list, I think, at one point, of all the schools and swim teams and dive teams.

We worked together to send that out.

So it was kind of a collaboration, grassroots of getting the word out into marketing.

And then I think another thing was the American Junior Golf association is there are 120 tournaments across the country.

Country.

So is it.

Oh, you're going to add our name to your resume and some kids are coming in.

Well, to me, it wasn't saturated, but it was the fact.

What's going to be different in Punta Gord?

Angwood Beach.

And that was live streaming.

And when they said, well, we've never done that, I said, you work with 120, 130 destinations and you don't talk to them about what their needs are, what your needs could be to fulfill it.

So now they've created that in their bid.

They'll send it out and say, we will live stream, destination, commercial.

So I think that I call it a kind of a campaign, so to speak.

But I think that's the neatest thing.

One thing about youth sports and collegiate, it's all B2B.

It's word of mouth.

It's getting to know the right person who wants to Come to your destination.

Whereas tourism marketing is a little different, obviously, with your digital ad displays and you're in brochures and airlines.

And so the B2B, it wasn't really a huge overarching campaign, but I think those two little things were kind of neat and niche.

Yeah.

One I would touch on, and it's really more of an event than a campaign, is Inglewood Beach Water Fest and how that started and came to be from the, from the get go.

And this dates back to one of my predecessors, when she first started as our director.

She kind of put together what she called these tourism teams and to try to get some feedback from.

Because she came from out of state, she wasn't familiar with the destination that well.

And also, one of those tourism teams was.

Was a sports development tourism team.

And in their brainstorming and everything, they came up with, hey, we would really love to put on a offshore powerboat race.

And I had already talked to some of the offshore powerboat organizers and stuff, and they were wanting money that we couldn't afford out of our budget, just for a host fee, 50,000, $80,000, whatever.

But they took it upon themselves, this tourism team did, to kind of form a group together, all volunteers, and really kind of created the event, got it going.

There were some rough spots early on and everything, but it's really smoothed out over time.

And there's, like I said, all run by volunteers.

The Rotary Club's heavily involved.

The Englewood Chamber of Commerce is involved.

So they really have a really solid foundation now.

And I think they're in their, what, 11th year?

11th year.

And it was very successful this year.

Last year it had to be canceled because the hurricanes.

But Maddie was there at the block party.

We had a block party Friday night, and they said it was the most well attended block party they've ever had for the event.

So you talked about running out of food earlier.

They were running out of beer there.

That's a good problem to have.

They had to go, right?

And then all those businesses down Dearborn street where the block party was, they were all benefiting from it, you know, I mean, and really, really the party was just simply having all the guys bring their boats down there on their trailers, have static displays of them all down Dearborn Street.

They shut the road down.

And then there's a little band shell in a little park right there that they had a really nice band playing that was pretty popular and some vendors and all.

And that brought, they're estimating somewhere around six or seven thousand people out There just for that one night.

And then, of course, the event took place that Saturday, Sunday.

And I was out there Saturday with Sean, and, you know, there are people line lined along the beach, so I'm not sure that we don't have the numbers back from it yet, but we should be getting that in the next couple of weeks.

But typically, that event generates about $5 million economic impact for just that one weekend.

So.

So we're really proud about how that started years ago and just kind of picked up speed and everything.

So it was a homegrown type thing.

Didn't have to bid on it or anything.

It was created locally and continues to.

Stay locally and grown to the point where we have our visitors bureau sticker on these boats going across the country.

You know, they're going by pretty quick.

You see them when they're parked and static.

That's what the block party's about.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think the neat thing about that is you have people who are enthusiastic racers that either did race or love speed agility.

Then you got people just coming out to have fun at a block party.

So it brings out a myriad of people.

People.

And, you know, in tourism, that's.

That's what we look for.

We got to remember we are public servants, so we're all about the residents, too.

So it creates opportunity for the residents, just like any sporting event, to come out and enjoy it.

Yeah.

Puna Gorda.

Inglewood beach is beautiful destination.

Being a.

Thank you.

A northeasterner with.

From the city and then I migrate to Florida and I'm coming down the highway, and to me, the biggest thing, the first thing that caught my attention was coming across that bridge.

Oh, it's beautiful.

And you see the mangrove and the water and the little islands everywhere in the distance.

You know, the high rise, the hotels.

And I start swerving and had that.

Yeah, yeah.

Looking and you know, you know, you.

You're.

You getting out of the city a little bit and coming into that type of environment.

Yes.

You need a job.

You're pretty good at this.

Definitely more of that.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know what?

That's what's neat about sports.

I mean, I'm blessed to be in a place where sports is outside the majority of them.

And our tagline is best side outside.

Yeah.

Because there's so much to do in destination outside that helped us get through pandemic and.

And people who just want to experience, as Sean said, the estuary, second largest in Florida.

The boating, the fishing and.

And just being outdoors, that's.

That speaks volumes to Anyone who likes sports, so that's beneficial.

Yeah.

And that's what caught my eye, too.

Exactly what you said.

When I came in town for my interview, when I interviewed for the position, I didn't know the destination very well.

I grew up on the east coast of Florida near Cocoa beach, really hadn't been to the southwest Florida much other than to visit my grandparents when they lived in nature.

So I'm coming over that same bridge and everything.

I could see myself here and all, so.

And.

And the beauty of it is you're not in a city.

I mean, you have a little.

But we do have a little walkable downtown area on a Gordo, which is very walkable and safe and all that, but you're not far from cities.

So if you want to go do something in Tampa, you know, run up the road, an hour and a half.

Down the Tampa Bay Bucs game, go.

To Orlando even, you know, I don't know how many times I've taken my kids over to Disney and everything.

It's a quick, quick drive, so.

But yeah, we kind of.

We kind of consider ourselves that we can be the hub of that spoke.

Where you could stay where, you know, in Punta Gordingwood beach and be very short distances to a number of other things to do.

Yeah, and.

And not into Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Absolutely.

Only like three hours there, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it opens up a whole nother market.

Matter of fact, during the pandemic, when Miami kind of was shut down, that's when we saw more baseball teams traveling.

And the neat thing about it is when I opened the roster, because part of our sponsorship is you got to tell us where they travel from, prove the hotel pick up and stay.

And the new eyeballs on the destination is we see a lot of Miami teams in West Palm and Lauderdale.

They're still coming because they were forced to come the first time.

And now they're like, what a great tournament.

What a great destination.

The family loved it, so it really helped us out.

It's interesting how that works.

And another thing that really caught my attention, and it's not too far from you in a sport if you want to go fishing in Alligator Alley.

Yeah, I know it sounds scary, but there's a lot of fishermen on the.

Airboat rides down there.

Down there, just fishing right there.

And the little.

I don't know what that's called.

It's like little estuaries.

The little estuaries, yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny, when we host conference.

We host the US Sports Congress, which is a intimate conference between rights holders and destinations.

And as soon as we were planning it, they said, people want to see alligators.

What are you gonna do?

So on their Tuesday excursion day, where they're out and about in the destination.

That's why we host these.

Is you're not stuck in the hotel the entire time you're out in the destination.

Yeah.

Is we did airboat rides, and they saw 30 to 40 alligators.

And we're loving life.

That was the most thing ever.

How many I can see from the highway.

Just drive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And years ago, they.

They didn't have that fence, so it was a little crazy driving across there.

But.

Yeah.

When I was in town for Water Fest, I ate some alligator at Babcock Ranch, so.

Oh, yeah, great spot.

Alligators aplenty here.

Yeah, no doubt about that.

No doubt about it.

Before we go, I just got to really bring it up.

We.

We always talk about food, and the last time we had one of our influencers who came to visit Punta Gorda, Eaglewood beach, she talked about this redfish.

You're still thinking about it.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll tell you.

So redfish is unique fish, and obviously there's a season for it, but it's plentiful in our destination.

Matter of fact, I think when Sean was.

Was part of sports, she did a redfish tournament, I believe, right in the harbor.

Redfish cup.

Y Redfish cup.

So it's real popular.

I don't know about how much redfish you have eaten, but, oh, man, it's.

It's a nice, flaky fish.

Really enjoy it.

Yeah.

Well, when I was in.

Especially in New Orleans and New Orleans, redfish was like, on every menu in our destination.

It's not as plentiful as menus, but you find it from time to time, and it is.

It's a good fish to eat, for sure.

Yeah.

Yep.

No doubt about it.

Amongst other things, you know, out in the Gulf, you have your group or mahi things of that nature that just.

Yeah.

Great seafood.

What I love, too, about our destination, it's kind of my elevator speech is we don't.

Downtown Punta Gordon does not have all the franchises.

We love franchises.

You know what you're getting, but you're able to really stroll and find places that are maybe a little smaller, off the beaten path, a little quaint, but they all have a story.

The chef was, matter of fact, one of the chefs at our Restaurants beat Bobby Flay.

I mean, that's really neat.

At Sunseeker, Gentleman's not there anymore, but he was on Gordon Ramsay show, so it's really neat.

A small little niche community like that.

I don't know if you can think of any more.

Yeah, well, speaking of Sunseeker, the pastry chef there, she won, like, seven gold medals in the Pastry Olympics or whatever it's called.

She's won, like, seven gold medals in that.

So, yeah, we have our share of people that of the food is sourced locally, too, which people, I think, are being a little more cognizant of that, too, these days, about where your food's coming from.

Yeah, you know, we've got some.

Some farms just east of downtown Punta Gorda that source some of those restaurants and all.

And then, of course, the crabs and other fish out of the.

Right out of the harbor there.

You can't beat that.

You can't get any fresher than that.

And some restaurants that will even cook your catch.

That's what I was going to say.

That is the coolest thing ever, is you can go out fishing for the day and they'll come in and they'll.

They'll prepare it the way you want and give you two sides at a price.

So what an experience, you know, from start to finish.

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah.

Now I'm hungry.

I know.

I hear you.

Well, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today.

Thanks for having us.

This is such a great conversation.

Definitely.

Thank you.

And I will be down there to go golfing.

Fantastic.

And some good seafood.

And some seafood.

He's going to get some redfish.

Finally.

I want to do a little bit of everything.

I want to, you know, go golfing.

I want to go fishing.

Chartered or I'll, you know, stand on a bridge somewhere.

Yeah, either way, it's fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm looking forward to it.

I actually even want to do a helicopter ride because our influencer was talking about.

Oh, yeah, fantastic.

Great idea.

We got that.

We got skydiving.

You gonna go over?

I don't know.

We'll start with the helicopter.

Well, we also have a good, cool biplane.

Yeah, I'm local.

Forward to getting there.

Excellent.

Love to have Fran and I'll be there and Maddie and Chip if they want.

Well, Chip lives close by.

Yeah, he does.

And you know what?

A quick plug for your team.

Your team's been amazing for what you do for us and the support.

Just me speak.

I know Sean feels the same way.

And he's worked with you as long as I have.

But thanks for all you guys do.

Thank you.

And we got Maureen and everyone else.

And yeah, the whole staff down there.

Yeah.

Yes.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

We're definitely working harder to get you more.

Yep, yep.

We like to hear that.

Thank you for that.

If you're interested in learning more about Shawn Dougherty or Shaun Walter or Punta Gorda, Englewood beach as a sports tourism destination, we have it all listed on aquatacs.com you can also find all of our socials there as well as their bios.

If you're interested in learning more, check out that website and see you next time.

Thank you.

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