LUMBERTON, NC (WBTW) – The 2018 Dixie Youth Baseball World Series is economically impacting the City of Lumberton.
President of the Lumberton Youth Baseball Association (LYBA), Tim Locklear, said the 60 teams come from 11 states, and more than 720 players and their families will stay in Lumberton.
“It’s been great for the city for us,” Locklear told News13. “It’s been a good recovery effort from the hurricane a couple years ago.”
Locklear said Lumberton was chosen to host the World Series before Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016.
“A couple months before the hurricane we were actually awarded it, and then we had the hurricane a couple months after, and we were wondering if we could actually have this or not, but it’s been great,” he continued. “It’s been a great recovery effort for the City of Lumberton.”
Locklear said the LYBA is hosting two World Series Championships.
“This weekend was the AA World Series, or as some call it Coach-Pitch and Machine-Pitch World Series for Dixie Youth Baseball,” said Locklear. “We actually have 12 teams in the Coach-Pitch and 12 teams in the Machine-Pitch World Series so it was 24 teams this weekend playing ball here in Lumberton.”
This Dixie Youth Baseball World Series has been held in North Carolina three times, but this is the first year it’s been held in Lumberton.
Executive Director of the Lumberton Visitors Bureau, Angela Sumner, said the 22 hotels in the city have noticed an increased occupancy since the start of the series.
“A lot of our hotels are booked,” said Sumner. “The economic impact is going to be a lot of hotel rooms, and then of course we are thrilled that a lot of the people have been eating at our restaurants, shopping in our community, and just seeing our community, and seeing Lumberton.”
Sumner said she’s not yet sure of how much money the tournament has brought to the city, but said there is an estimated $1 million to $2 million financial impact from the series.
“We’ll just have to see until the end,” she said. “We will follow up with our hotels in the area, and we will be measuring exactly what increase of percentage it will do, and we will also follow up with restaurants and retail to see if they had a large increase during this time.”
Sumner said the money brought from the series is important to the community after the damage from Hurricane Matthew.
“Between losing a hotel, losing major restaurant in the area,” said Sumner. “Some of those things have come back, and some have plans now to come back,” she continued. “Having opportunities to showcase that, yes we’ve had a hurricane, yes it did shut down I-95, but that we’re building back, and building back even stronger.”
The 2018 Dixie Youth Baseball World Series started on July 27 and will end Aug. 9.