St. Joseph gets some sports swagger
St. Joseph put its best foot forward this month at the 2025 MSHSAA Girls Volleyball State Championship.
The tournament brought 20 teams to a freshly painted Civic Arena in Downtown St. Joseph. In recent years, the city has invested considerable funding into this 45-year-old facility, replacing the scoreboard and making or planning upgrades to seating, flooring, lighting and bathrooms.
For years, St. Joseph dangled the possibility of a Downtown convention center tied to a casino. In a world of limited resources, the city made the right decision to abandon that costly dream and instead focus on upkeep and modernization of an existing facility.
St. Joseph Sports Commission, part of the Convention & Visitors Bureau, is attracting a steady stream of high school and college sporting events to help this revitalized facility reach its potential. You have to wonder if MSHSAA or the NCAA would be as excited about playing next door to a casino.
Upcoming events include the MIAA volleyball championships and preseason Division II basketball tournaments at Civic Arena. In addition, high school football championships are coming to Missouri Western State University in December. There is plenty more on the schedule.
While the city seems no closer to attracting a Downtown hotel to anchor events at the Civic Arena, a drive across St. Joseph isn’t the same thing as a drive across Kansas City or St. Louis. Perhaps high school volleyball or Division II athletics doesn’t carry the prestige of NFL training camp, but prestige doesn’t pay the bills.
What St. Joseph needs is people to stay overnight, visit the sites and eat at the restaurants. St. Joseph needs out-of-town visitors who see the city as more than a couple of exit ramps on Interstate 29. It’s debatable whether Chiefs camp does that. Fans seem to get on I-29 as soon as practice is over.
For St. Joseph, these high school and college sporting events at the Civic Arena provide something that every marketer dreams of: a captive audience. They also provide something more intangible.
While everyone should get excited when Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce show up in July, these smaller high school and college events give our city some swagger in the world of sports.
