Visit Anaheim formed Sports Anaheim to attract amateur sporting events to Orange County.
Roy Edmondson, vice president of sports development for the destination marketing organization, will lead the new division.
The effort is planned as a way to increase room nights at hotels and tourism traffic at related businesses.
Sports groups are part of a bread-and-butter segment of hotel and convention business that helps fill hotels without drawing the kind of notice that higher-profile meetings and conventions do.
“Anaheim is a sports town,” as home to professional sports teams in baseball and hockey, said Visit Anaheim President and Chief Executive Jay Burress. “We can offer … our expertise in developing and producing world-class sporting events.”
Visit Anaheimsaid it will also form an advisory group of business and sports industry representatives to help guide the efforts.
—Paul Hughes
