WKU Basketball teams have economic impact of $2.25M on Warren County

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – A new report finds that the basketball success that WKU saw this past season also had a positive impact on the county.

A study done by the Bowling Green Area Convention & Visitors Bureau takes a look at the economic impact both teams had on Warren County this season.

“It all came about last year… 2023, we did a report on the Mid South Conference in town. Todd Stewart reached out to me and liked that report and wanted to know if we could do something like that for the athletics program. And so we started with the spring sports of the 2023 season. Then we continued with the fall season for this year,” Darius Clement, the Sports Sales Director for the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau says.

This study found that WKU Basketball teams generated over $2.25 million in revenue for the community.

“A lot of it is spectators coming in and then we’ll add in those hotel rooms from visiting teams… and we have a formula that calculates when we put it in our system about how many spectators are coming from outside of Warren County,” Clement says.

Athletic Director Todd Stewart says he’s not surprised to see these numbers, and expects to see them go even higher next year across all sports.

“It’s something that we always wondered… what the impact was. So we started doing that this year. We monitored everything in the fall with home volleyball, soccer and football games. That was a $3.5 million economic impact just from the fall alone. That gets us up just under $6 million for the year so far. We’ve still got baseball and softball to come. So I think when we get a final tally in June, it’ll be probably an $8 to $10 million overall economic impact on Warren County,” he says.

As a Bowling Green native himself, Clement is excited to see growth for the team, but also businesses in the area.

“I’m thrilled that I’m a part of this… and I get to see the impact that Western brings to the community outside of what regular people may not see… they’re generating business for the hotels… they’re generating business for the restaurants, they’re generating business for all kinds of local restaurants… and a lot of people just don’t see that,” he says.

Clement also says he thinks the numbers will increase next year. However, it all depends on how many home basketball games WKU has next year.