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I believe MESA and Wenwood are now Greenville County Parks (at least that's what the signs say) after CESA received $1.5 million in Greenville County based restaurant tax money which I believe is 2%.

Please correct me if you have other data.



I don't know if what you posted is correct. However, here's the other data that I have. I can't believe I spent time doing this today.

Last weekend, CESA hosted the Adidas Festival. All games were held at MESA. There were 170 teams. 133 teams from outside of Greenville. (I counted off the website schedules. Ridiculous huh?) They came from GA and NC. Mostly Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh. Let's do some very conservative estimating.

These were all academy teams so the roster would be small.

Let's say that the teams only spent 1 night in a hotel. Most probably spent 2, but we'll say just 1. Let's say that there were 9 rooms per team. Let's also say that a room costs $80.

133 teams x 9 per team x $80 = $95,760

Let's say that these 9 players per team got a tank of gas in town. Let's say a tank of gas costs $40 (laughable)

133 teams x 9 per team x $40 = $47,880

Let's say that each player (parents not included) ate a meal in town. Let's say the meal costs $10. (laughable again)

$11,970

So, based on these ridiculously low estimates, $155,610 were earned in GA and NC and were spent in Greenville County this weekend alone.

This was for a 170 team tournament. CESA does 3 others in the year that are well over 200 teams. One gets close to 300 teams.

Also, 133 teams means 66 games at a time. Each getting 3 games means 198 games. Another extremely low estimate would say that a referee earns $15 for a game. Almost all of the referees at MESA at Greenville kids. So that would be $2,970 earned by Greenville kids paid for by GA and NC.

I haven't put in what kids bought while visiting the mall or the handful of x-rays that were probably taken this weekend.

In terms of economic impact, I think they'll reach that $1.5 million real quick.