College Station approves contract with A&M for 24 USATF National Junior Olympics Track and Field Championship

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – City leaders are gearing up for another big event coming to College Station in less than two weeks, the 2024 USATF National Junior Olympics Track and Field Championship.

The city approved a contract with Texas A&M University on Thursday for event oversight and execution of the games which will take place July 22-28. It will take place on the A&M campus and there will be two days of set up, July 20-21.

The city expects the event to bring over 9,000 of the nation’s top young athletes to the area. That does not include coaches, fans and more who will join them.

With so many people coming to town they estimate people will spend about 10 million dollars within the community. According to the city the championship is estimated to cost anywhere from $800,000 to $950,000 to put on. To pay for it the city plans to use $750,000 in state and local tax revenue through a trust fund to pay for it.

“We have to prove up some attendance numbers to the state, we had to submit the economic impact analysis that you all received as part of the packet and they gave us back that award letter saying we had to prove up certain attendance numbers each day and as long as we hit a certain threshold the grant is actually a reimburse grant, so, in essence, we prove up the expenses that qualify for the state’s parameters and then we receive the reimbursement for those,” Jeremiah Cook, the City of College Station’s tourism manager said during the meeting.

However, in response to questioning by City Councilman Bob Yancy, Cook did say it is not a guarantee the city could recoup all of the cost.

The event follows the George Strait concert and the Mexico Vs Brazil soccer match which took place in June.

College Station used a paid parking system for those events but said there are no plans to implement that again for the championship. Leaders say they don’t think it will be needed with it being a smaller event and being on a different part of campus. College Station Mayor John Nichols added that staff had also not completed its analysis and reported to the council on the pilot project.