Sports Tourism give Rockford Businesses a Boost

While kids wrestled for the top spot, local business owners feel they could be the real winners.

"Anytime you have more people downtown it's always going to affect us. You always have a chance of grabbing a few more people in the store." says owner of JR Kortman Center for Design Jerry Kortman.  

He says the area used to be a desert when he first opened. Now he sees sports tourism as something that benefits the city. "It helps the motels, hotels, retail bars, it just brings more money into the city and that's sort of the name of the game."

The hotels Kortman was mentioning are not in downtown Rockford. Some visitors say it can be an inconvenience. "It would have been nicer to have something that was local." Says Randy

Reynolds who made the trip from St. Charles Illinois to watch his son Chad wrestles.

He thinks the city needs improvement. "It looks like and older city" he said. "It needs uplift, it needs a facelift."    

Officials are saying once more revenue is brought into the city, they can focus on improving downtown Rockford. Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau President John Groh says " sports tourism at sports core one and sports core two, each year it pumps about fifteen million dollars into our community.

He says that money is being put to good use. Groh says "this money when it's left in our community in its supporting jobs; it's supporting our local businesses and overall improving our lives.