Winners of 2026 SportsTravel Awards Announced at TEAMS ’26

The Northstar Meetings Group announced the winners of the 2026 SportsTravel Awards during the TEAMS ’26 Conference & Expo in Birmingham, Alabama, on Wednesday, honoring the best events, new venue and host city in the sports-event industry.

TEAMS: Travel, Events And Management in Sports, is the world’s largest gathering of event organizers and travel planners from the sports industry. TEAMS ’26 was held at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex. The National Congress of State Games also announced the winners of its Athlete of the Year awards during the awards ceremony and Compete Sports Network recognized its Person of the Year.

The 2026 SportsTravel Award winners are:

Best Amateur Sports Event — 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships / St. Louis, Missouri

Hosted by the St. Louis Sports Commission at Enterprise Center and Centene Community Ice Center, the championships welcomed the nation’s top figure skaters and served as the final step toward selection for Team USA at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. The event attracted more than 91,500 spectators, the highest attendance since 2014, with the largest Friday session since 2002. The event generated $15.8 million in economic impact, nearly 25,000 hotel room nights, and $944,000 in combined state and local sales tax revenue.

Best Collegiate Sports Event — 2026 NCAA Men’s Final Four / Indianapolis, Indiana

The men’s Final Four returned to one of its most popular destinations, capped by Michigan’s first national championship in 37 years. This time it also delivered an eye-popping $400 million in anticipated economic impact, up a staggering $329 million over the last time Indianapolis hosted the event in a non-pandemic season in 2015, thanks largely to the estimated roughly 700,000 visitors who came to the city for the biggest weekend in men’s college basketball.

Best Professional Sports Event — 2026 FIFA World Cup / Various Locations 

The world’s biggest single-sport event returned to North America for the first time in 32 years and set records for attendance at 6.8 million while bringing in 7.7 million visitors to FanFests across the United States, Canada and Mexico. In the U.S., the World Cup obliterated previous television viewership records, with an average of 7.7 million people watching each match on Fox, FS1 or Tubi (more than double the average from 2022) and a staggering average audience of 39 million on Fox for Spain’s 1-0 win over Argentina in the final. That was the most-watched English-language soccer match in U.S. history and the most-watched non-NFL sports event in the U.S. in 10 years.

Best New Sports Event — 2026 USA Volleyball Girls Junior Club Championship / Columbus, Ohio

The GJCC was a stand-alone, non-bid national championship event hosted by USA Volleyball, designed specifically for girls junior club teams in the 10u–17u divisions. The inaugural event took place June 5–7, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. As a non-bid event, teams did not need to qualify or earn a bid to participate. Instead, the event was open to any USAV club that wanted to enter teams and participate. More than 150 clubs from across the country took part.

Best New or Renovated Sports Venue — The Course Spokane Valley / Spokane Valley, Washington State

The 46-acre facility was purpose-built for NCAA and USA Track & Field specifications with the goal of redefining what a championship cross country venue can be in the United States. Its customizable course layouts (ranging from 0.5 miles to 10K), championship-caliber infrastructure, and spectator-focused design with multiple viewing areas have quickly established The Course as one of the nation’s premier destinations for cross country competition. The Course has already secured an impressive lineup of major events, including the West Coast Conference Championships, NWAC Championships, NCAA Division III Regional Championships, Nike Cross Regionals Northwest, and the 2027 NCAA Division I West Regional Championship.

Best Sports Host City — Miami, Florida

It was another hot year in Miami. The city hosted the NHL Winter Classic for the first time on January 2, the first outdoor NHL game ever in the state. A few weeks later, it welcomed the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Hard Rock Stadium and in March it served as the site of the World Baseball Classic final at loanDepot Park. On April 4, the city added Nu Stadium to its list of venues, home of the reigning MLS Cup champions, Inter Miami CF, and during the World Cup it hosted seven matches, including the third-place game between France and England. Add in its other events, led by the Miami Open (405,000 spectators) and the Miami Grand Prix (275,000), and the city ran up a projected total sports economic impact of $3 billion.

“This year’s winners once again reflect the depth and breadth of the most dynamic part of the travel industry — sports-related travel,” said Jason Gewirtz, senior vice president for content for the Northstar Meetings Group and the publisher of SportsTravel. “Our winners include some of the world’s largest events but also others that an equally outsized impact on their host cities and regions. This year’s winners embody the spirit of why people travel to participate in and attend live sports events and they should be incredibly proud of their accomplishments.”

The SportsTravel Awards are nominated and voted on by the readers of SportsTravel, published since 1997 and the first publication dedicated to the industry of sports-related travel. Criteria for nomination and voting for the 2026 SportsTravel Awards program included events that occurred or venues that opened between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.

Hosted by the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau, TEAMS ’26 was held October 26–29 in Birmingham, Alabama. For more information, visit TEAMSconference.com.