Bronx Is Biggest Sports Event Destination: Survey

Forget the Beijing Olympics. The top event destination among sports enthusiasts is this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY.

That’s the indication from results of an annual survey conducted by TSE Sports & Entertainment, which specializes in marketing sports event travel packages.

The Bronx was the premiere destination choice, topping Beijing, for historic and sentimental reasons: this will be the last All-Star game played in legendary Yankee Stadium, which will be torn down and replaced by a ballpark across the street after the 2008 season.

“It was a big surprise to all of us that the All-Star game was the top event. The interest was off the charts,” said Robert Tuchman, founder of TSE and creator of the annual TSE Index.

Tuchman anticipated the Olympics would be the survey’s top draw, but said that the distant location also was a factor in its second place finish.

Following the Bronx baseball shrine and the Beijing summer games, the Ryder Cup tennis tournament placed third in the survey, since it’s being held in Louisville, KY, this year. The biennial event is held in the U.S. every two years.

The Super Bowl ranked fourth, followed by the Daytona 500, which moved up a slot from last year’s rankings presumably because the recent race was the 50th running.

Filling out the TSE Index Top 10 were the NCAA Final Four in San Antonio, TX; The Masters golf tournament in Augusta, GA; the BCS Championship Game in New Orleans; the Kentucky Derby in Louisville and the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in Flushing, NY.

The survey was conducted among 275 TSE clients, all based in the U.S.