Salt Lake City to host the 2012 United States Volleyball Open National Championship
The 2012 United States Volleyball Open National Championship will be held in Salt Lake City starting from May 26 to June 2.
Jeff Robins, the president as well as the CEO of the Utah Sports Commission, spoke about the upcoming USA Open tournament and said, “We are excited to host USA Volleyball, a key partner of ours as we continue to diversify into both winter and summer Olympic
Legacy relationships. This will be the fifth USA Volleyball national championship the State of Utah has hosted since 2001 and the 2012 USA Volleyball Open National Championships will bring significant exposure and economic impact to Utah.”
Other than the Utah Sports Commission, the sponsors of the event include the Intermountain Region of USA Volleyball and the Salt Lake City Convention and Visitors Bureau. The Salt Lake Convention Center will serve as the venue for the championship and it
will be the 83rd time next year that the prestigious event will take place.
Salt Lake City has a history of hosting volleyball events and its locals welcome the sport whenever it comes to town. Locals have taken part in the previous volleyball events by contributing to ticket sales and attending the matches enthusiastically. Salt
Lake City has already played host to two of the USA Open championships in previous years. The first of these took place in 1972 whereas the second one was hosted in 1988.
Salt Lake has been a bit more active in the past decade and has had the honour of hosting various volleyball other events. The USA Volleyball Girls’ Junior National Championship was hosted by Salt Lake consecutively in the years 2001 and 2002. After a gap
of two years, Salt Lake again hosted the tournament in 2005.
Other than the girl’s championship, Salt Lake also played hosted two matches of the 2006 FIVB World League. In these two high level competitions, U.S. Men’s National Teams competed against each other.
The preparations for the upcoming event are already under way at the venue as the influx of spectators is expected to be record breaking. The City has to take care of accommodations for the teams as well as the spectators that would be commuting to watch
the event. Other than that, the infrastructure of the city also needs to be upgraded.
In all, there are more than 550 teams that will be heading towards Salt Lake for the championship. That translates into over 6000 players. The boost that the economy of Salt Lake City will get from the event is estimated to be about $ 16 to 18 million.
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