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Featured Article | |
High School football playoffs begin this weekend, and the road to the state championship leads to Orlando!
The FHSAA Football Finals will be held right here in Central Florida at the Florida Citrus Bowl. The four-day event consists of eight state championship games with two games played on Friday and two games played on Saturday of both weekends. The dates for the 2011 Football Finals are Dec. 9, 10, 16 and 17.
Two teams in Osceola County, including St. Cloud and Osceola High will compete in the playoffs with the chance to advance to the State Championship. Click HERE for the FHSAA playoff brackets and check out your team's Road to Orlando.
Hopefully your favorite team will make it, but even if they don't you will not want to miss the best high school football in the nation. Many of the players that compete in the FHSAA Football Finals will surely go on to be the next stars in the NCAA and even the NFL. General admission tickets are $12, and for the first time ever you will have the ability to purchase a reserved seat. Skip the lines and guarantee yourself a seat close to all the action for only $17. Click HERE to purchase your tickets today.
For more information about the FHSAA Football Finals, visit our website at www.roadtoorlando.org or follow us on our new Road to Orlando facebook page.
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A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM BRENT
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We hope this month's impact letter impact finds you doing well and looking forward towards the upcoming holidays. Here at Sports Commission office, the past month found our team preparing for some upcoming events while working to identify and attract some exciting new sports related events and activities to Osceola County.
With some crisp temperatures moving in, fall is definitely in the air, and that means that football season is in full swing. Florida's pro teams are more than half-way through their season, college teams are positioning themselves for bowl games and high school teams are vying to advance to the state championship game in Orlando. In Osceola County however, our favorite football players are less than 6 feet tall. That's because the American Youth Football & Cheer National Championships invade Osceola County in early December.  The football competition will be held at Austin Tindall on December 4-10, and the cheer competition will be held at Osceola Heritage Park on December 10. Together these two events will bring more than 20,000 athletes and spectators to Osceola County and create more than $13 million in economic impact for our local economy.
In other news, the Sports Commission has been following up with some event organizers that have an interest in coming to Osceola County for future years. Read more about our recent business development activities below in this month's impact report.
Thank you for your continued support as we continue to market Osceola County as the preferred destination for event organizers across the United States and beyond.
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Best Regards,
Brent Nelson
Interim Executive Director
Central Florida Sports Commission |
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IN THE PIPELINE  |
The Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau have recently been in discussions with Hero Rush, a firefighter themed obstacle race and experience, about hosting an event in Osceola County in 2012. Hero Rush requires participants to race through a 5-8K course of heroic obstacles designed to emulate what an actual firefighter experiences. Based on our diligence, this event is projected to attract over 4,000 participants and spectators over the course of 2 days next fall. The Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau hope to be conducting a site visit with Hero Rush in the next few weeks. Should we have a great site visit, the chances of Osceola County hosting a Hero Rush event next fall appears very good based on our centralized location and nearby attractions. Keep your fingers crossed!
Also, the Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau have been in discussions with the Professional Anglers Association (PAA) about hosting an event in January 2012 at Lake Tohopekaliga. The PAA represents many of the top professional anglers that compete in BASS and FLW events. This event would be unique in the fact that it would pair two (2) professional anglers on a team compared to a professional and amateur angler, which occurs with both BASS and FLW events. Approximately 50 - 100 anglers from across the United States could participate in the Osceola County event, with their average length of stay ranging from 4 - 7 days. Please stay tuned to future impact reports to see if we are awarded the event!
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| | WINS & LOSSES | |
(As of October, 2011)
Bids Submitted - 11
Wins - 9
Losses - 3
As mentioned in last month's impact report, the Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau recently submitted a bid to host the 2012 & 2013 USA Wrestling Kids Greco-Roman and Freestyle National Championships in Osceola County. We recently learned from USA Wrestling that we not awarded the bid to host the event in 2012 and 2013 as they wish to keep the championship on the West Coast based on its proximity to their existing regional qualifier events. We greatly appreciated the opportunity to bid on this event in conjunction with our local partners, and look forward to bidding on more USA Wrestling events in the near future.
In other news, the Sports Commission recently learned that the US Sports Congress has decided to host their 2012 conference in Sarasota, FL. We had a great site visit with their representatives while they were in Osceola County last month, but unfortunately we were not selected as their destination. We will continue to work with the US Sports Congress on potentially bringing this sports conference to Osceola County in the future!
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| UPCOMING EVENTS | |
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| COMMUNITY PROFILE |
Florida Christian College
As we look forward to co-hosting the 2011 NCCAA Division I & II National Christian College Athletic Association's (NCCAA) Men's and Women's Soccer and Volleyball Championships with the Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau, we would like to spotlight one of our invaluable partners, Florida Christian College. Florida Christian College (FCC) is a four-year undergraduate college, which offers degrees in Associates of Arts, Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Theology, and requires a Bible emphasis of all who earn a degree. Not only is FCC instrumental in allowing us to host NCCAA Championships, but they also provide additional support to the Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau through volunteers. On behalf of the Sports Commission and Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau, we thank you for all your help and support! Click HERE for more information on Florida Christian College.
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