Sports Tourism: A Small-Town Playbook for Regional Impact
The Citynet Center is featured below in this case study about sports tourism. Read more about how the City of Bridgeport, West Virginia, could welcome visitors, serve residents, and operate sustainably.
How big does a community have to be to become a regional sports destination?
For Bridgeport, West Virginia, the answer was about 9,400 people. But population was never really the deciding factor. The bigger question was whether one investment could attract visitors, serve residents, and remain valuable to the community for generations.
That question shaped the Citynet Center at The Bridge from the beginning. The Bridge Sports Complex already gave the city an active outdoor sports campus, but indoor recreation was the missing piece. The Citynet Center fills that gap with a 25-yard by 25-meter competition pool with a community warm-up pool, a multi-sport gymnasium with an indoor track, 40,000 square feet of indoor turf, a fitness and performance training center, climbing, team rooms, and a café.
Through feasibility studies, community engagement, market analysis and repeated financial testing, the city developed a facility that could operate on two very different schedules: everyday community recreation during the week and regional tournaments and events on weekends.
The lesson for other small communities is to understand the process that allowed a small town to think regionally without losing sight of the people who live there.
A Five-Step Playbook for Small Communities
1. Start with purpose and public value
Before counting courts or projecting hotel nights, decide what the investment should do for the community. Bridgeport wanted to strengthen its existing outdoor recreation campus, expand year-round opportunities for residents and create economic activity by welcoming indoor regional events. They also provided a way to evaluate future decisions: Would this choice strengthen community wellness, economic opportunity and long-term public value? Just as important, the City established a funding framework early. Through West Virginia’s Home Rule program, Bridgeport pursued a municipal sales and use tax that provided capacity to finance the project, support operations and reinvest in the campus. The funding strategy helped the City evaluate its ambitions against available resources.
2. Build a champion team
A large public investment needs people who can challenge the idea as well as champion it. Bridgeport formed a Sports Recreation Complex Committee that brought together City Council, citizens, youth sports interests, and parks and recreation staff. The planning process then reached further through 16 focus-group sessions, more than 400 survey responses, facility tours and work sessions. The goal was to hear different perspectives early enough to influence real decisions about the program, costs, operations, and experience.
3. Define the local and visitor markets
Municipal population is only one piece of the market. Bridgeport’s planning showed that the city itself could not support the envisioned program on its own, so the team looked at the larger service area for everyday users and wider drive times for tournament visitors. Residents may be looking for fitness, swimming lessons, leagues, indoor walking and family activities on a Tuesday. A tournament weekend brings athletes, spectators, teams and different expectations for circulation, food, gathering and support. Understanding both markets helps a community avoid building something that is too specialized for residents or too limited to compete for regional events.
4. Balance program, budget, schedule, operations and performance
Bridgeport tested multiple program options, capital costs and operating assumptions before moving forward. When early analysis raised new questions, the city studied the project again in 2017 rather than treating the first feasibility study as the end of the process. Program, budget and schedule tend to get the most attention during design, but operations and long-term performance are what determine whether the facility continues to succeed after opening day. In Bridgeport, that discipline carried into design. The estimated construction budget was $37.06 million and the 2019 construction bid came in at $37 million.
As of 2026, the facility reports 7,000 memberships and program use, league, sports tourism and events that surpass the operational goals for the Citynet Center.
5. Create a flexible campus plan and return to it
A sports tourism facility should not be planned as an isolated building. Bridgeport considered parking, trails, outdoor fields, stormwater, neighborhood connections, and future development as part of the larger campus from the beginning. Just as important, the city kept planning after the Citynet Center opened in 2021. Improvements included a multipurpose field in 2022, turf infield upgrades in 2023, and an inclusive playground in 2025, while plans continued for additional athletic fields and recreation opportunities. In 2024, a master plan took place to further determine the makeup of the campus. A survey received more than 1,300 responses, indicating strong interest in the offerings at The Bridge Sports Complex. The first outcome of that master plan is a new, large outdoor synthetic athletic field complex that opened in 2026, with additional recreation opportunities and indoor court space being considered for future phases.
The takeaway is that demands shift, sports evolve, and new opportunities emerge. The campus needs enough flexibility to evolve with these changes.
Three Tests Before You Build
The planning process can get complicated quickly. Funding, programming, market studies, operations, schedules and design decisions all compete for attention. Three simple questions can help bring the conversation back to what matters.
The Tuesday Test: Will residents use it on an ordinary weekday?
Most days are not tournament days. A successful community sports facility needs reasons for residents to come back throughout the week. At the Citynet Center, fitness, gymnasium courts, aquatics, indoor walking, leagues, camps, indoor turf and gathering spaces create that everyday activity. The Tuesday Test asks whether the building still makes sense when the bleachers are empty. If the answer is yes, sports tourism is supporting community recreation rather than competing with it.
The Tournament Test: Can visitors move, play, watch, eat and gather with ease?
Athletes need team rooms and warm up spaces. Spectators need clear circulation, views, food and places to gather. Staff need operational control. First-time visitors should find their way without asking. Bridgeport addressed those needs through open concourses, visual connections between venues and spaces that support both competition and hospitality. Good sports tourism design considers the entire visit, not just the playing surface.
The Twenty-Year Test: Can the investment adapt and remain valuable?
Facilities outlive trends. Sports change. Communities grow. Operating conditions shift. The Twenty-Year Test asks whether today’s investment can adapt, support reinvestment and remain financially and socially valuable. At the Citynet Center, courts and indoor turf spaces have different configurations. There are flexible meeting and fitness spaces, along with a campus planned for future phases to help protect the city’s investment over time. The broader campus continues to evolve, reinforcing an important point: opening day should not be the finish line, it should be the beginning.
Regional Reach, Local Heart
Bridgeport shows that sports tourism does not have to be reserved for large cities, and it does not have to come at the expense of everyday community recreation. The Citynet Center was designed around both. The Bridge Sports Complex complements this mission as well. The campus is created to be a regional competition destination that enhances the daily lives of Bridgeport residents and the surrounding region.
That may be the most useful lesson for any small community considering a similar investment. Start with purpose. Understand who you are serving. Test the idea honestly. Design for ordinary Tuesdays as carefully as tournament Saturdays. And create a plan that can adapt as the community changes.
Small towns do not have to choose between welcoming the region and creating a place that belongs to the people who live there. With the right planning, one place can do both.
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