Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus Takeover — The Rest Of The Story!

On April 18, Pasco County’s Board of County Commissioners voted to buy out the contract of RADDSports, LLC, to manage the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus. 

I called the county’s tourism office that same day — and made three additional attempts before I went to press with this issue — in an effort to get official responses to a number of my questions about the takeover plan from tourism director Adam Thomas, who did not respond to my questions. 

Instead, the only response I got, from Tambrey Laine, the manager of media relations for Pasco County Government, was the press release put out jointly by the county and RADDSports, and that, “The county is declining to comment further.”

Please note that almost everything presented below is a matter of public record. The only exception is what the owners of RADDSports told me Thomas said to them prior to the Sports Campus groundbreaking in 2017; however, Anthony Homer of RADDSports assures me that what he says Thomas said at that time is true. — GN   

 For those who don’t understand why Pasco County has agreed to buy out the contract to take over the management of the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus for what will end up being more than $6 million of taxpayer funds, you’re not alone.

It seems that our editor was the only reporter who thought it odd that Pasco Tourism director Adam Thomas (right) chose to pose for this picture with former county commissioner Mike Moore — rather than with the management of RADDSports — when the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County won the Florida Sports Foundation’s award as the state’s Best Small Market Venue for 2021.

Adam Thomas, the county’s director of tourism who renamed the tourism department “Experience Florida’s Sports Coast,” got the job basically the same day Pasco and the private firm RADDSports, LLC, broke ground on the Sports Campus together in 2017. 

RADD’s Anthony Homer had told me back in 2020 that Thomas had told him and RADDSports president Richard Blalock prior to the groundbreaking ceremony that if it were up to him (meaning Thomas), there would be no private-public partnership between the two entities. And, it seems Thomas has been doing everything he could to end that agreement ever since.

For one thing, despite Thomas’ claims to the contrary last year, RADD has provided proof that it never did actually default on its agreement. And yet, Thomas still was able to convince the five county commissioners back in October 2022 to vote in favor of that default.

Thomas had the county hire the attorneys (with county money) who wrote up the default paperwork that the commissioners voted on in October — without the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) ever seeing any proof of the default and without even discussing it before they voted to approve it from the Board’s Consent Agenda. The commissioners at that time accepted Thomas at his word that RADD was focusing on local events, not on increasing sports tourism in the county, which was the primary portion of RADD’s mandate in that agreement.

Prior to the unanimous vote at that October BCC meeting, RADD even provided the commissioners with actual statistics from an independent study firm that proved that not only had no default taken place, but that RADD had actually outperformed all of the tourism benchmarks of its agreement.

These facts presented by RADD were confirmed by a separate $35,000 independent report — commissioned by Thomas — also using public funds.

In fact, RADD did such a great job of establishing the Sports Campus as a tourist destination for people outside of Pasco that the study showed that it was the #55 tourist draw in all of Florida last year, outperforming much more established attractions like the Miami Seaquarium (#56) & the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium (#57). The Sports Campus also won the Florida Sports Foundation’s Small Venue of the Year award for 2021 under RADD’s management.

Again, despite Thomas’ claims, it wasn’t only RADD’s local programs that were hugely successful — it hosted 112 events (there have been many weekends with more than one event) in 2021-22 and those events helped local hoteliers sell tens of thousands of room nights both years in Pasco — and bring more than 92,000 unique visitors to the county. All of this happened despite RADD first taking over the Sports Campus at the height of Covid.

In addition, Pasco received the agreed-to $150,000 payment from RADD for 2021 and would have received its agreed-to $150,000 payment for 2022 had the BCC not voted to default the company. Pasco also would have received 11% of RADD’s revenue this year, and already has received millions more in sales and bed tax funds from all of the visitors the Sports Campus has brought in from all over the country and even beyond.

Instead of continuing this mutually beneficial partnership, Thomas convinced the commissioners to spend the following:

• $250,000 in taxpayer money on legal fees to force RADD out;

• $3 million over the next five years (including $1 million this year and $500,000 each year for the next four) to buy out the agreement with RADD;

• $2.8 million to operate the Sports Campus — at a loss (for at least the first two years, according to the default notice approved by the county in October);

• $94,000 to purchase furnishings & other items from RADD; and 

• $35,000 for the independent study previously mentioned.

So, is that $6,179,000 an amount of money a small, but growing, county would spend of its taxpayers’ funds to take over a supposedly defaulted contract? 

“We thank the county for recognizing the value that RADDSports has brought to the Sports Campus,” says Homer of the buyout agreement.

I don’t know why Thomas has had an issue with RADD from Day One, but I felt compelled to at least provide the actual facts of this situation, as I have not seen most of the information presented here reported by any other local news media. 

Helping Pasco Sports Tourism Rebound in 2021

Club volleyball has been keeping the January calendar full at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.

If tourism is going to bounce back from the Covid-19-ravaged 2020, a series of spikes, dunks, cheers and racquet sports will have a lot to do with it.

At least that’s how it looks to Pasco County tourism director Adam Thomas, who says that after a tough year for tourism around the world, events are returning to Pasco’s “sports tourism” sites, including the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, Advent Health Center Ice and the Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center — all part of the county’s “Florida’s Sports Coast” branding.

Thomas says the three facilities have 14 events scheduled for the first two months of the year, with many more to come, as national governing bodies like USA Volleyball, USA Wrestling, USA Powerlifting and others look to take advantage of Florida’s open-for-business status and have eyed the Wesley Chapel-area to hold events.

“We are just now getting back to normalcy,” Thomas says, despite rising Covid numbers in Pasco, in Florida and around the nation. “We are looking at sports tourism in 2021 to really get us back to where we need to be.”

One event that won’t provide as much help as originally expected is Super Bowl LV, which is being played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on February 7. Generally, a huge event like the Super Bowl would have a major economic impact on nearby Wesley Chapel, with visitors staying in local hotels and eating and shopping at local restaurants and stores.

But, Covid-19 protocols will limit the crowd at Raymond James Stadium, which can hold 65,890 fans, to roughly 20,000 for the Big Game.

Thomas thinks Wesley Chapel will still enjoy some benefit from the Super Bowl, but in October, Pasco backed out of plans to spend $250,000 on a Super Bowl sponsorship and instead use that money for something more likely to bring a bigger return to the county.

So, while the Big Game won’t make as much of an impact, hundreds of little ones will — and that’s fine with Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which runs the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, thanks to a public-private partnership between Pasco and RADD Sports.

The 98,000-sq.ft. AdventHealth Sports Arena will host a variety of club sporting events in 2021, bringing hundreds of teams and players and their parents’ wallets to Wesley Chapel.

The January calendar was filled with volleyball tournaments and gymnastics meets. Volleyball and gymnastics club seasons will roll into a basketball club season in the spring, and then the camp season over the summer. The Sports Campus is already proving to be responsible for a lot of hotel room nights and money spent at Wesley Chapel restaurants, malls and shopping centers, as nearly every weekend is booked through August and even Covid-plagued 2020 proved to be a success.

“We are not one-sport-specific, and that helps us,” Blalock says. “We made that decision by design. We can run a multitude of events here. As one season ends, another is starting.”

Blalock says in August and September of 2020, the first six weeks the Sports Campus was open, its events were responsible for 1,800 hotel room nights and just over $150,000 in sales, resulting in a $1.2-million indirect impact on the local economy. 

He doesn’t have numbers yet for the rest of 2020, but Blalock says he expects to exceed those numbers in 2021. He says this while staring out his office window at construction workers laying masonry blocks on the fourth floor of the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel, which is being built adjacent to the arena on the Spots Campus site and is expected to open around the first week in August.

But, 2021 also is planned to include  an NFL-style combine for pro football hopefuls, organized by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Yo Murphy, as well as the possibility of European soccer teams camping here prior to their fall 2021 seasons.

Hockey Tourism, Too

Thomas says the Sports Campus isn’t the only local venue to have a slew of events booked to meet pent up demand. AHCI currently is hosting a six-week United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL) camp — a college and pro showcase with hundreds of players staying at Saddlebrook Resort and playing games at AHCI — as well as in Ellenton and Brandon. 

The USPHL’s Hub City concept is designed in part to make up for the loss of games and exposure events for players last year, especially from hockey areas hit particularly hard by Covid-19, like the northeastern U.S.

Because so many events were cancelled last year and so many seasons went unfinished,  Thomas anticipates eager event organizers to be heading our way.

“Our event calendar looks pretty promising,” he says.

The SVB Tennis Center in Zephyrhills is attracting sports tourism with growing sports like padel (photo) and pickleball. 

The county won’t recover in one year, Thomas adds. He believes the Covid-19 vaccine will help make people more comfortable when it comes to travel and attending larger events, but that change will take a while. While 2021 is expected to put the Florida Sports Coast back on track, Thomas says the tourism industry is looking at 2023 before a full recovery can probably be expected.

“It’s going to take some time,” he says. “We’re still licking our wounds.”

When the pandemic hit last year, the county was coming off a record-setting February. March began the nosedive, and when the state was shut down for much of April, the county saw its tourist tax revenue drop to below $100,000 for the month, down from $430,000 in tourist tax collected in April 2019.

There is some good news, even if it is anecdotal — Thomas says the last weekend of 2020 saw 6.2 -percent growth, with almost 40 percent hotel occupancy. “We had a really good week,” he says. “Hopefully we’ll continue to see that.” 

In fact, Lisa Moore, the market director of sales for the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel on S.R. 56 says, “We’ve been at or near 100% occupancy every weekend since the Sports Campus opened. It (2020) was a tough year, but things are looking better now.”