The state 7-on-7 tournament returned to College Station’s Veterans Park and Athletic Complex on Thursday after the 128-team tournament was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cassie Stricker
“State 7-on-7’s always been one of our marquee events, so having that back makes us feel like it’s almost getting back to normal,” said Dominique Powell, sports and events director for the city’s sports tourism division Compete College Station.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people will make their way to the Bryan-College Station area for this week’s event and bring in a projected $1.3 to $1.7 million to the area, according to Powell. He added that a second event — the Gridiron Select Flag Football Tournament of Champions — also will be held at Veterans Park on Saturday and Sunday, which is anticipated to bring an additional $500,000 to $700,000 to the area.
“It’s a huge week for our community with people coming in Wednesday through Sunday. It’s going to be very impactful,” Powell said. “We talk to all of the businesses, and they say thank you all the time, because they need these summer events to make it through. We lost 60,000 students when the summer comes, so we need to find ways to help those businesses and keep that sales tax going and keep that revenue coming to town.”
Since 1998, the state 7-on-7 tournament has been held in College Station for all but one year (Round Rock, 2013). In 2014, the event moved to Veterans Park from Texas A&M’s Penberthy Fields, and this year Veterans Park has two new turf fields.
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Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
