Prospect Wire Loves the West Coast!
“Coming from Florida, where it rains somewhere every day, it was a stressful start to our tournament experience. Beginning to run events in Arizona, we thought, ‘WOW, this is so much easier. We were used to the heat (took us a while to adjust to the dry though ha), but we didn’t contend with much rain. You set the schedule and the events went like clockwork start to finish. Everything ran on time, it was great.”
Those were the remarks of Prospect Wire President Brian Werner, when thinking back to the decision to start creating events outside the state of Florida.
“We got into the tournaments in 2009. By 2012, we had started running a few events in the Phoenix area. Then we got approached about potentially trying to do something in California. We QUICKLY realized why so few major organizations had any large scale events in California…THERE ARE NO COMPLEXES! By then we were using 8, 10, 12 fields for our events in Arizona and Florida. So our mindset was the same, run as large an event as possible. But how do you do that when you have to find 8-10-12 individual fields??? Well we found out that not only is it possible, you can actually find up to 15 haha!” Werner said with a chuckle. “It takes a ton of work but it’s possible. You just have to stay consistent, secure as many options as you can and dwindle down from there, and try to establish good relationships with as many facilities as possible, so the process becomes easier each year.”
Prospect Wire has continued to grow their west coast footprint since that initial move in 2012.
“Pre-Covid we started doing things up in NorCal. We had plans to continue that growth into the PNW. Things got put on hold, as we all know, and we are working to develop new ideas to execute those plans again. With the success of our first Utah event last year, we are already at the same numbers in Ogden for 2025, and they are just starting to warm up and get on the fields out there. That’s a great sign for an event’s longevity. We hope the same holds true this summer in Boise. With weather beginning to turn warmer, we hope to see an increase in that event’s participation. Having 2 events in the Rocky Mountain region is a great start to building back towards that PNW goal. We would love to be able to call the Rocky’s & PNW our new territories, in the same way Arizona and California did all those years ago,” said Werner.
This year, Prospect Wire has their largest West Coast event schedule to date. With 10 events in Southern California, 3-4 more in Arizona, and 1 each in Ogden and Boise, Brian Werner has said there is more to come here soon.
“Oh for sure, we are far from done out there. We have some conversations in the works for something new with Explore Utah Valley, as well as some initial conversations with Visit Fort Collins, Visit Stockton and a few others. We just want to continue to look for areas where we can bring quality events, rather than cattle call quantity ones. We know that isn’t always ideal for Sports Tourism, but we also know sometimes slow and steady wins the longevity race.”
For information on any Prospect Wire event, visit their PlayEasy page or directly at play.prospectwire.com for the complete event schedule.
To discuss bringing an event to your destination, you can reach Brian Werner at brian@prospectwire.com
