Fort Wayne Prepares to Make History Hosting World Championship Event

In recent years, Fort Wayne has emerged as a powerhouse when it comes to hosting sporting events and punching above its weight. The Indiana destination has welcomed college basketball championship events, USA Curling, fencing, USA Wrestling, wheelchair basketball and more.

Now Fort Wayne is about to make history when it becomes the first city in the United States to host the World ParaVolley Sitting World Cup from October 12–18 at the Turnstone Center.

The 2025 edition of the event will bring more than 500 delegates representing 17 countries to Fort Wayne, including athletes, coaches and international/national technical officials. The city is expecting to see an estimated economic impact of around $2.3 million.

“We were looking at opportunities to host events leading up to LA 2028, and as part of that pipeline, World ParaVolley was something that has not been considered for the U.S. before,” said Jazmin Zavala, sports sales manager for Visit Fort Wayne. “It provided us an opportunity to source grant funding, which was a big part of us getting this event.

“So we worked in partnership with Turnstone to identify the event. They did the first original out call, and then we came in to help from an event funding standpoint and then support services.”

With the 2028 Paralympic Summer Games taking place in Los Angeles, World ParaVolley sees this as a chance to garner some publicity and attention for the sport in America. The best male and female players in the world will be featured in Fort Wayne.

Joe Campbell, World ParaVolley Pan America Zone president, has been around the sport of sitting volleyball since 1989. Before accepting his current role in 2012, Campbell was the referee commissioner for the sport for 18 years. He has been to six Paralympic Games during his career and is excited to bring elite sitting volleyball to Fort Wayne.

“I think it’s very important to host this event in the United States in many aspects — but mainly just to open people’s eyes and see another form of volleyball,” Campbell said. “We’ve seen over the past years how much volleyball has grown. Look what Nebraska did holding the volleyball match in their football stadium to bring in the largest crowd ever.

“I know for the city of Fort Wayne, they’re promoting it like crazy, and I anticipate having some very big crowds come out to see the athleticism that these athletes have and the speed of the game.”

Part of that local promotion in Fort Wayne included a media day that was hosted on September 19, which allowed all local and regional media to come see the sport played by local sitting volleyball athletes to garner interest prior to World Cup action.

While Visit Fort Wayne will stay neutral and not show any favoritism to the U.S. teams competing, the schedule will feature Team USA games in the evenings and on weekends to ensure maximum fan support.

“Fort Wayne has not hosted something of this caliber since 2019 on an international level when we hosted the International Blind Sport Association qualifier,” Zavala said. “At that time we had to really focus on our community resources and support. And what we see in Fort Wayne is when we bring in adaptive events the community support is outpouring.”

Fort Wayne Offers the Perfect Fit

When Campbell took his initial site visit to Fort Wayne in March of this year, he was instantly impressed with not only the Visit Fort Wayne staff, but also Plassman Athletic Center and the Turnstone campus as a whole. He returned in September, after Fort Wayne had won the bid, for his final site visit before the October 12 start date.

“It’s a fabulous, beautiful facility,” he said. “I’ve been in this sport since 1989, and I’ve been to my share of events around the world. And this has got to be one of the top, most pristine facilities we’ve ever used, which is amazing.

“They have adequate room and all the necessities that we need to host an event like this. The staff is top–notch, very professional. Willing to help you in any way possible to make things happen. So I’m very impressed with all of the work that they’ve done, because I just went back and did my final visit and everything is looking really great.”

Plassman Athletic Center — where the ParaVolley action will take place — was built with accessibility in mind. It features extended doorways and very few points of height differences in the floor. There’s even colorized textural flooring, as some of Turnstone’s clients also have visual impairments.

Zavala said the center was built with an event like sitting volleyball in mind, so there was no need for the venue to make major upgrades. Turnstone did, however, need to make a capital investment in live streaming. Its new state-of-the-art system was supported by the Indiana Sports and Tourism Bid Fund, allowing the World ParaVolley Sitting World Cup to be live streamed internationally.

“I definitely think our experience and expertise in adaptive sports, with Fort Wayne being a U.S. Olympic and Paralympic training site that’s dedicated to adaptive sports, was a big reason that they felt confident in our ability to host,” Zavala said. “And then secondly, being able to garner that community support and interest in not only attending, but also gathering over 1,000 volunteers for this event. So I think World ParaVolley had the trust that we would be able to produce at the level that they need.”

As for the competition on the court, Campbell said that any sports fan who hasn’t witnessed sitting volleyball is in for a fun, exciting experience.

“Some of these athletes can hit a ball just about as hard as our Olympic athletes,” Campbell said. “And the reason why it’s so much faster is because in standing volleyball, the men’s net is 2.43 meters high, versus 1.15 meters for a sitting net for men, so the ball gets to the floor much quicker.

“It’s going to, I think, help boost spectators wanting to watch the game, and I’m really hoping it’s going to increase the number of people to come out to L.A. and actually watch the games during the Paralympics.”

Zavala says that Visit Fort Wayne approaches hosting any large sporting event — whether adaptive, local, national or international — the same way. The local organizing committee of 20–25 people all wear different hats when hosting events, with the main goal being an excellent experience for all.

“We have different shifts of volunteers working all day, starting at 6:00 in the morning, all the way up till 10:00 at night,” Zavala said. “When the teams get here, we are providing them with housing, meals, transportation. It’s really meant to be a turnkey operation for them. We even have some ambassadors who will assist in welcoming the teams. We just really want to roll out that red carpet.”