[09/25/02]After receiving a negative report on its economic impact in Shreveport, and amid rumors that not every tournament may be here, the City of Vicksburg has decided not to pursue a bid for the Southwestern Athletic Conference Spring Sports Festival.

The city had less than 30 days to prepare and submit a bid, which just wasn’t enough time to work through some of the issues that arose during the economic impact study, South Ward alderman Sid Beauman said.

“I’ve been looking forward to trying to get this event for three years. I always thought Vicksburg would be a good venue for it, and I thought that up until (Monday),” said Beauman, who first proposed the idea of bringing the SWAC baseball, softball, tennis, golf, and track and field tournaments to Vicksburg during his tenure as Parks and Recreation Director. “I wish we would have been able to get involved three or four months ago instead of at the last minute like this … You have to punt. You don’t have time to negotiate and work through some of these things.”

Jay Roberson, the SWAC’s assistant commissioner of men’s sports and head of the league’s championships committee, refused to comment on the issue.

A message left for Alcorn State athletic director Robert Raines, whose school supported Vicksburg’s desire to bid for the tournaments, was not returned.

In a letter to Beauman’s assistant, Sue Roberts, Shreveport Regional Sports Authority executive director Mary Ann Tice said her organization paid more than $50,000 for the right to host the spring tournaments, as well as an unspecified amount in expenses for support services such as security, ticket takers and facilities rental.

Despite the large investment, the city received little return, Tice said in the letter. Crowds were far lower than anticipated, the number of athletes involved was fewer than promised, and the economic impact of the tournaments wasn’t as great as advertised.

A message left for Tice at her office in Shreveport on Tuesday was not returned.

“I feel confident it would do better here, but the problem is you’re talking about a substantial amount of money in cash and a substantial amount of money in services,” Beauman said.

Steve Reynolds, senior director of marketing for Isle of Capri Casino in Vicksburg, said the company’s Shreveport casino also saw little extra business during the tournament.

At a Tuesday morning meeting with Beauman at City Hall, Reynolds said the casinos there blocked off large numbers of rooms for the SWAC that went unused.

“You’ve got to have a lot of people coming into your community, and if you don’t have that it’s hard to recoup those funds,” Beauman said.

To land the spring tournaments, Vicksburg would have had to put a cash guarantee of between $35,000 and $50,000 in its bid.

Beauman had been hoping to get the casinos involved in Vicksburg’s bid to help offset the costs, but the NCAA frowns on involvement in college sports by legalized gambling interests.

“We always make sure we check the legality of anything before we get involved,” Reynolds said. “My understanding is that the NCAA is hesitant to have any casino involvement in collegiate athletics.”

In addition, Tice said in her letter to Roberts that there was little cooperation from the SWAC and its member schools on the organizational and promotional fronts.

“It was an incredibly difficult event to organize and orchestrate due to the fact that there is very little organization coming from the conference office. It was also incredibly expensive,” Tice said in the letter.

Also troubling to Beauman was a report from “a Jackson State employee” who said his school had already been selected as host of the 2003 SWAC tennis championships. The tennis tournament is listed on Alcorn State’s schedule as being in Birmingham, Ala., the other city bidding for the 2003 spring tournaments.

“That was just a rumor,” Beauman said of the Jackson State report. “But when you start hearing those kinds of rumors, and then you get this report (from Shreveport) in, it makes your ears perk up.

“You’re getting mixed reports, and you don’t have time to investigate them all in 30 days,” Beauman said. “You do something of this magnitude, you have to investigate.”

Although the city won’t bid on the spring tournaments, Beauman said he and Parks and Recreation director Craig Upton would continue to try to bring single games to Vicksburg.

Mississippi Valley State and Louisiana Tech played baseball at Bazinsky Field two years ago, and coaches at both schools said at the time that it was an ideal “halfway point” for the teams.

Beauman also didn’t rule out the possibility of bidding on the Spring Sports Festival in the future, when there was more time to organize and prepare a solid bid. For now, however, it just wasn’t worth the risk, he said.

“Our recreation department has had a great working relationship with Mississippi Valley and Alcorn, at least on the baseball end of it, and we want to continue that,” Beauman said. “This is nothing against the athletes or the SWAC. This is strictly a business decision based on return of investment.”