Earlier this week, tickets for baseball’s spring training went on sale for the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers. This upcoming spring training will be the first time since the pandemic began that clubs will have a full season to practice in Arizona.
Both teams play at Surprise Stadium under the Cactus League. Spring training generates revenue for cities like Surprise.
According to a study from the Cactus League, in 2018, the 15 teams involved in the league generated an economic impact of $644 million. In 2020, when the season was shortened due to COVID-19, the economic impact from spring training was $363 million.
Without spring training in Arizona, cities were hurting economically.
“You know a lot of our tourism is sports tourism in the city and so spring training is our largest driver of tourism in the city in sports so we’re looking forward to having more people come visit the city” said Joe Bertoletti, assistant director of Sports and Tourism for the city of Surprise.
The city is very excited for spring training to return.
“This will be the first full spring training that we've had since 2019 and so we have expectations that we will have more fans more people coming in as visitors outside the Phoenix Metropolitan area to the city of Surprise," Bertoletti said.
A more updated study is due out at the end of the 2023 spring training season.
