Vancouver is expected to get a tourism and economic bump from hosting the inaugural, nine-day Americas Masters Games (AMG), starting August 27 with an opening ceremony at Jack Poole Plaza.
The $3.5 million, 22-sport extravaganza is expected to attract more than 10,000 people, including more than 5,000 athletes who are all over the age of 30 years.
Unlike ultra-competitive extravaganzas, such as the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, the AMG is as much about celebration and participation as winning.
In that sense, it is similar to the Out Games, although the Out Games are primarily intended for those who identify as gay, bisexual or other sexual minorities.
The AMG is a regionalized branch of the World Masters Games, which held its first event in Toronto in 1985 and rotates around the world every three to five years. That format of a global games and regional games also makes it similar to the Out Games.
Business in Vancouver reported on those games when Vancouver hosted the North America Out Games in 2011.
Despite the AMG being intended as a regional games, Sport BC CEO Rob Newman, who is helping to organize the games, estimated that the Vancouver AMG will attract athletes from 52 countries.
As for the budget, Newman expects Vancouver's AMG to break even, thanks to funding from:
•the City of Vancouver (15%);
•Vancouver Hotel Destination Association (15%);
•the B.C. government (12%);
•sponsors such as Delta Hotels, Save-on-Foods, Molson Canadian and Via Rail among many others (10%);
•registration fees of $215 per athlete (30%); and
•merchandise sales and other sources (18%).
Sport BC is a non-profit sport federation that represents more than 60 provincial sport organizations and lobbies to improve the landscape for sport in the province.
It normally employs six people but, starting about 20 months ago, Sport BC began hiring people to help it organize the AMG.
Newman told BIV that, in addition to those six people, there are now eight full-time employees and four interns whose focus is to organize the AMG.
“Roughly 50% of the athlete registrations are from outside B.C.,” he said. “Of those registrations that are from B.C., about 75% are from the Lower Mainland.”
He had not yet tabulated the exact breakdown of where the international athletes were visiting from, by country. Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance will do a an economic impact assessment on the AMG after the games are over.
Newman added that those who participate in the AMG tend to attend other World Games and regional variants.
“When people travel to masters’ games, whether it is a regional games or a world games, it becomes part of their holiday planning,” he said.
Nice, France hosted the 2015 European Masters Games while Auckland, New Zealand plans to host the 2017 World Masters Games.
“It’s good for Vancouver to have this critical-mass event at the end of the summer season,” Tourism Vancouver CEO Ty Speer told BIV.
“This is part of our sport-hosting strategy to have events like this.”
Speer believes the event will contribute to Vancouver’s reputation as a city for athletics and sport.
Many of the sports will be played at the University of British Columbia (UBC). For example, baseball games will be at the UBC Thunderbird Park Baseball Field, athletics will take place at UBC’s Rashpal Dhillon Track & Field Oval while field hockey games will be played at UBC Wright Field among other venues.
Golf will be played at McCleery, Fraserview, and Langara courses.
