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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=jCkWb_RAiU0

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Good morning. >> Morning. >> Welcome [clears throat] to the Tuesday, July 21st, Tourism and Development Commission meeting. Uh Steve, can we go over the >> roll call? Yes, sir. >> Chair Chairperson McGomery >> here. >> Vice Chair Sher Stoenovich >> here.

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>> Commissioner McKver >> here. >> Commissioner Miller >> here. >> Commissioner Shelton >> here. Chairman Chairman, we have a quorum. Sorry. >> Thank you, Steve. And can we get approval of the minutes? And may I have a motion for that? >> I move to approve the minutes from June

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23rd, 2026. >> I second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I >> All right, let's get going here. We're going to Yes. >> Steve, talk to us. >> Correct. Uh we're going to item number three, event funding program requests. Uh we are recommending three community

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event funding programs. the Westmost Western rodeo, Arizona Fall Championship, and Fall League baseball exhibit. The total amount [clears throat] recommended here is 34,500. Uh we are looking for a recommendation to approve as presented uh this morning. Uh we're here also to address any

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questions you might have as well. >> Okay. Uh any questions >> before we get going? Can we uh I'd like to invite Mike Phillips to talk to us a little bit about the baseball exhibit. That would be fantastic. Oh, >> that'd be nice. Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. Um, my name is

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Mike Phillips. I'm president of the Arizona Baseball Legacy and Experience Group. We're a nonprofit that celebrates Arizona baseball history, and we've done exhibits, uh, we've been around five about five years. We've done exhibits at Dodger Stadium at the um uh the Tempee

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um I'm forgetting the name of the the facility the um uh the uh Arizona Museum and uh Mesa and in Scottsdale. And we're our latest project is to

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develop a couple of exhibits for Scottsdale Stadium during the fall league. and one involves uh the 1951 Bobby Thompson home run uh that won the playoff series against the Dodgers. Uh

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the ball's never been found and uh just through a happen stance and some relationships. Uh we've uh met a guy who claims he has the baseball and he has some compelling evidence uh to support his claim. Uh we've also done some

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research. there's evidence that would uh perhaps debunk his his claim, but it's probably uh there's probably more evidence uh to uh support uh this being the baseball than anything that's uh been found in 75

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years. So, it's uh we're building a an exhibit around uh the ball. We've actually got some uh scientists affiliated with ASU that are going to run some sophisticated tests on the baseball which will hopefully give us uh some answers about whether it's uh the

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Bobby Thompson home run or not. And we're planning to uh release those findings as part of our exhibit uh probably during a press conference on October 3rd, which is the 75th anniversary of the home run ball. Uh in addition to the ball, that was a remarkable playoff series.

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it. Uh the Giants came from 13 games back to tie the Dodgers on the last day of the regular season. They held a three-game playoff series. Uh Bobby Thompson won the series uh in the third game in a ninth inning walk-off home run. It's called The Shot Heard Around

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the World. There's been a number of books written about uh the uh the series, the search for the baseball. And so we're really excited because we're going to add another chapter to almost this mythological story uh surrounding this baseball game and this baseball.

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And so that'll be um a part of the exhibit we'll host at Scottsdale Stadium. We think it will generate a significant amount of interest both locally and nationally. Uh so we we think it will drive attendance to the fall league games at Scottsdale Stadium

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uh this season. Uh in addition to that exhibit, we're planning to do um another separate exhibit conc running concurrently on military veterans that have served in the Cactus League. And if you when you uh start digging into that story, it's also very rich and colorful.

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Uh there uh Tai Cobb was a special assistant with the Red Sox in the 1960s. Actually served in World War I. Ted Williams uh was on that Red Sox team. Uh he was a pilot both in World War II and Korea. He was a decorated pilot. He lost

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four and a half years of his baseball career uh through service to the military. Uh a number of of of uh players that helped break the major league baseball color barrier went through uh spring training in the valley. They were also military veterans. Willie Mays, Monty Irvin,

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Ernie Banks. Uh so there's a very rich history of Cactus League players having military service and we want to recognize um that that part of baseball history and and also we're working with some military groups around the valley to

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maybe have a veterans baseball game uh during uh the fall league at Scottsdale Stadium. And uh we're also working on an award that we're going to give to an individual or organization over the past year connected to Arizona that's um

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helped veteran causes. So we've got some some big plans and we think it will shine a pretty uh bright light on Scottsdale Stadium this fall and the fall league and we hope that it will drive attendance and interest in the fall league.

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For the baseball fans and historians, this should be really something. Sounds very exciting. Good for you for finding something so compelling uh to shine a light uh in the city. Any commissioner's questions about the exhibit? >> I do. Um, I I understand that this is a

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really special uh visit and I've heard or exhibit and I've heard great things about it, but my question is is what makes you think that a exhibit inside the stadium around a game that's already happening is going to drive incremental business.

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>> Just curious on what your thought process is on that. >> Oh, sure. Um the uh there's a number of venues in in the valley that host Cactus League games and there if you're a hardcore baseball fan uh you're going to go out to see the game, you know, the

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motivation is to see the players and enjoy the atmosphere of a game. Um, if you're a casual fan and you're deciding where to go, uh, the fact that we've got an exhibit that is going to highlight uh, a a possibly the most dramatic game

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in baseball history and have an artifact that's tied to that game. The ball that we're talking about, it's been at the Hall of Fame, uh, was there for several years. Um, and, uh, they advertised it as being, uh, part of that baseball game. So, it's a it's on on its own,

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even if it's not the home run ball, it's an historic baseball artifact. It's something that's been uh in a in a safe for 26 years. It hasn't come out. Uh and so it it I we think it's going to drive a lot of interest. People will actually

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um make a special trip into Scottsdale and attend a game at Scottsdale Stadium to go through the exhibit because the baseball itself is so rare and the story um is is so compelling. And your plan to measure that is just really increased attendance year-over-year. Is that what

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you're going to use as your benchmark or >> Yeah. Um the fact that the there are actually baseball games taking place while the exhibit's open, they'll we'll have a very good uh uh metric on how many tickets have been sold, how many people attend the game. We're going to

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count the people that come into our exhibit. Last year we were at Scottsdale Stadium. We had a smaller um exhibit. It came together rather quickly and we still got approximately half of the uh we think roughly half of the fans that attended the game went through our

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exhibit which we thought was a a pretty strong number. And uh so there's a lot of ways we can track the metrics on this. >> And um if you're not a huge baseball fan but would like to see the exhibit anyway, is there a way to do that or do you buy a ticket to the game? Is that

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how you get in? We'll probably be open uh some days when there isn't a game, but the fall league games are so affordable. I think they're $10 a ticket. So, it's um it's it's not a a financial burden to attend a game.

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And uh we'll work with the stadium also on some creative ways to to bring in a larger audience. I mean, our one of our goals is uh you know, Scottsdale's got a wonderful reputation as being kind of the center of spring training baseball in Arizona, and we want to we want to

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build on that reputation and work on the the shoulder seasons. The Fall League uh has got a the people who attend fall league games, there's a very hardcore baseball audience, but there's incredible potential to expand that. And

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Major League Baseball, because the fall league runs concurrently with their playoffs, Major League Baseball really doesn't consider the fall league a priority when it comes to promotion. They want to spend their promotional dollars on uh drawing eyeballs into the playoffs that are taking place

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concurrently. So, we think locally it's on us to promote the fall league and bring people in. It's a wonderful product. Uh it's exciting baseball. It's at a wonderful time of the year. And things like our exhibit, we think again put that spotlight on the fall league and let people know it's here, it's

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taking place. And there's these added activities that we that enhance the experience of going out to a baseball game. >> Any other questions? >> Okay, Steve, this is more of an overall question. So for the three events here, what do these events look like as far as

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drawing actual hotel room nights? >> Uh, we generally collect that information. It's not that great amount of room nights that come in per the event. Uh that criteria is not necessarily associated with community event funding program funding criteria I should say. But uh they utilize RV

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spaces in some cases of two rodeo and the horse event that's up there. >> So could we possibly survey the baseball exhibit to to look at hotel room nights? >> Yep, that's possible. You know, we can do that. We actually have that in our agreement that if we elect to do a survey, we can have an intercept survey

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out there. >> Yeah, that that would be interesting because remember last year we had a concert over the first weekend of November in Scottsdale Stadium that we paid for. So, I'm I'm not sure if those ba the baseball dates are actually going to run over those exact sets of dates if that concert comes back in and ask for

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the same dates again this year, which I I would think they're going to. >> That's a possibility. We can check on that, but definitely we can get a survey team out there for you. [snorts] All right. Any other questions? May I have a motion on the event funding?

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>> I move to uh fund the event fund these three events for the recommended amounts noted. Total of 34,500. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Thank you. >> You're good, Mike. Thank you. Thank you.

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>> Well, including your Well, going on to item number four, staff reports. If there's any particular questions you have on the uh on the reports we provided there, we're happy to address some financial as well as some of our bet tax collection numbers that are shown there for the year to date. I >> I just have a question. Is are the folks

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Jennifer from Canal Convergence coming in and doing a presentation? >> That's correct. We have that coming up a little later on future agenda items. She'll be here in August to present Canal Convergence. Okay. Anything else? Commissioners. >> Well, Steve, I guess I'm gonna ask for

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>> Oh, we got a commissioner's report. And >> if there's any commissioner reports, >> let me ask one one more question. Is there an ability to get Cvent reports that the the experience Scott Gastel is getting as far as numbers of leads that's come through this year versus

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last year? We I can check on that with uh their team to see if that's a possibility. Um we can discuss that. >> Any commissioners want to share about an event they've been to recently? No. Okay. I guess it's

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warm in the valley in the summer, so I'm guessing uh no [clears throat] one wants to get outside. Um all right. Well, then I guess I'm going to look for >> Wow. Just a couple items, no public comments that we report today. Item number six. >> Okay. >> Um and future identification of items

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mentioned canal converge in August. Uh we also have the Arizona native colon experience should be presenting here in August as well. >> And if you recall, I had requested that the stadium come back and correct give us a little bit more information about

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>> I've reached out to them. We'll get that schedule. I got some days. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Steve, anything else >> that that's now we can adjourn if there's motions. >> I just want to make sure that if there is a Guinness Book of World Records TDC

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meeting that I submit this uh meeting. Uh may I have a motion for adjournment? >> Motion to adjourn. >> A second. >> All those in favor? I I >> Thank you. Guinness Book of World Records. Thank you everyone.