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Fired up about Tour of Missouri

Once again, the folks at the Fired Up! Missouri blog are, well, fired up about the Tour of Missouri bicycle race. Here's what the blog -- with a heavy dose of hyperbole -- has to say about the race:

Now comes word that Kinder's bike race ran a $330,000 deficit--- and taxpayers are getting stuck wiping up the mess.

Recently released Missouri Development Finance Board minutes paint a picture of (Lt. Gov. Peter) Kinder strong arming the board he chairs for $350,000 in emergency funding to cover race shortfalls. Kinder also discloses that he is asking (Gov. Matt) Blunt to release state emergency budget reserves to cover other costs.

With all due respect to the folks at Fired Up! Missouri, it's real stretch to get call what Kinder did "strong arming" based solely on the minutes of the meeting. You can read them for yourself and come up with your own conculsions.

The short form is that the board approved the request of $350,000 to cover remaining costs associated with the Tour of Missouri.

Robert V. Miserez, the executive director of the board, said it had approved $100,000 for the race in August and said costs came in under budget, but revenues also came in under budget. Total revenue shortfall costs were approximately $330,000.

Kinder commented that not as much money was raised from sponsorships as they had hoped for, but he expected this would improve for the 2008 event. Vice Chairman John Starr said it is not unusual for an event to take several years to gain enough momentum and seed capital to have a self-sustaining event.

Earlier in the meeting, Kinder reported the economic data from the University of Missouri School of Business for the Tour of Missouri race and indicates the race had an economic impact of $26 million for Missouri and the out-of-state visitors stayed longer and spent more dollars at the race than the average tourists to the state.

The Missouri Bicycle Federation says Blunt and Kinder are supposed to announce the start and finish cities for the 2008 Tour of Missouri and discuss the economic impact of the 2007 race at a press conference Wednesday in Jefferson City.

I'm sure it will be entertaining to see what Fired Up! Missouri has to say about that.

Labels: racing, Tour of Missouri

Roger 1 comments links to this post 1:41 AM

Comments:

Tour of Missouri had $26 million impact, $330k deficit in 2007

A report that will be released by Gov. Matt Blunt (R) later this week will show the Tour of Missouri, a professional cycling event that traveled to cities throughout the state, had a $26 million impact on the state's economy in 2007....[continue reading here]

# posted by  MPN: Missouri Political News : 12:36 PM

 

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