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Portland to Host 2010 Gay Volleyball National Championships
By Nick Mattos
For those with an itch to volley, it’s game on.
Portland is newly confirmed to host the 2010 Championships of the North American Gay Volleyball Association next May. The largest volleyball competition in North America, the NAGVA championship will be one of the most high-profile gay tourism events in Portland’s history, with early estimates projecting $1 million to be pumped into the local economy.
“Portland has great interest from the local gay and lesbian community, from the local government, and local businesses,” cites NAGVA Vice President Rob Warren. The ease of travel between the airport, the Oregon Convention Center where the competition will be held, the downtown Hilton that will house the athletes and guests, and central nightlife was also cited as a major selling point. “The [NAGVA] board was overwhelmingly in favor of Portland,” says Warren.
Athletics are noted by players and fans alike as a healthy, fun means of getting involved in the gay and lesbian community.
“I used volleyball as an outlet to acclimate myself to the gay community,” says local championship organizer Sean Walker. “It was my main connection to the gay scene, as I didn’t know any other gay people.” In this spirit, the championship is looking to feature other events, including a block party and performances, to give the local community and guests opportunities to mingle off the courts.
Participants will be coming from all over the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The 2009 NAGVA championship, held in Chicago, brought in more than $1 million in tourism revenue in five days; the 2010 Portland championship is expected to draw even more participants due to an increase in available courts. Businesses here are already getting excited about the anticipated influx. “Any time a big group like that comes to town, it affects all of us,” notes Harriet Guthrie, manager of Hobo’s. “It’s good for our economy here in Portland.”
Walker has been engaged with Portland Gay Volleyball for many years. Having organized numerous tournaments in the Portland area, including the annual Portland Gay Volleyball event in October, he was up for the challenge of bringing the NAGVA championship to his city. “Lots of [Portland] teams travel all over the U.S.,” says Walker. “It’s been a while since the championship has been on the West Coast, and now we have the opportunity to showcase what Portland has to offer.”
The Oregon Convention Center is equally enthusiastic. Matt Pizzuti, director of sales and marketing for the OCC, says the center “hopes that NAGVA has such an awesome time in our facility and in our city that we become a regular site to host the National Championships.” When asked what challenges the organizers may face in planning the event, Pizzuti mentions the increasingly famous restaurants and array of microbreweries and wineries locally and remarks, tongue-in-cheek, that “the only challenge [the OCC] foresees is how the volleyball competitors will perform with a full stomach and a hangover!”
The local organizers of the 2010 NAGVA Tournament need Portland’s gay and lesbian community to support the effort through sponsorships and donations. “For sports that weren’t geared toward the gay community,” says Walker of his former athletic organizing experiences, “there were no issues in getting funding - when we label something ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ it becomes much more difficult. Most of the local things we do here in Portland we pay for out-of-pocket – we have to basically host fundraisers ourselves for our equipment, website development, and fees.”
The local gay volleyball league has to raise about $100,000 to host the event – an amount that all involved have expressed optimism about achieving quickly. The group must also recruit more than 100 volunteers for assistance during the events themselves for tasks like setting up sport courts and ticketing.
Walker is already receiving support from potential sponsors and the community-at-large. “Once [the initial planning] was all together and we had about 25 guys marching in Pride with signs advertising that we were hosting,” he recalls with a smile, “the response we got from the crowd was not just my confirmation, but the organization’s confirmation that the community is supporting us and as excited as us that we’ll be hosting such an enormous event!”