The Greater Manchester Sports Council recently held an economic summit with an emphasis on developing the city as a sports destination. In the last four years Manchester has seen a new ballpark and downtown arena as well as the renovation and upgrading of several other sports venues and fields, but they want to do more, including bringing in high school events and making more of a total event experience for families to help market Manchester as "the" sports destination and also bring more money into the economy. We'll talk about what the Sports Council is doing as well as what role sporting events play in boosting a city or town's economy. Laura's guests are David Long, Host of Sports Night with Dave Long on WGIR, Sports Columnist for The Hippo Press and WMUR.com and Executive Director of the Greater Manchester Sports Council, Gary O'Neil, Creative Director for The Tracey Edwards Company and Chairman of the Greater Manchester Sports Council and Andrew Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics at Smith College in Massachusetts. He is an award winning author, commentator and sports industry consultant. His latest book is "National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer" and he has another one coming out next March called "The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig". We'll also hear from Jody Reese, Publisher of the Hippo Press in Manchester.
