Gig ‘Em Economy: College Station, Texas, and the New Game of Revenue Generation

Historically, June is a little slower in college towns. Students have mostly departed, and communities from Athens to Eugene can feel more like the smaller villages they once were. Yet for the benefit of every parking space that is suddenly available near campus there is a downside: fewer people using those spaces to go shopping or dining or — as is the case for many of America’s largest schools — attend sporting events.

In an age of exploding costs for college athletic departments, such a scenario is problematic, and the summer is now less a time to reset than it is to think big. And because no state likes to do things bigger than Texas, it has led to one of the biggest sports weekends in the history of College Station, the home of Texas A&M University, and there isn’t an Aggies football game on the calendar for another three months.

On June 4, College Station will host not one but two major sporting events and neither will feature the Aggies in action. The USA Track & Field Grand Prix will be staged from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Cushing Stadium, home of the school’s men’s and women’s track-and-field teams that have combined for nine outdoor national championships since 2009. At 8:00 p.m., defending FIFA World Cup champion Argentina will take on Honduras in a pre-World Cup friendly at Kyle Field, the 102,773-seat stadium whose most recent football game came in the College Football Playoff last December.

This isn’t even the first major event at Kyle Field in recent weeks. On May 2, the stadium was sold out for the arrival of the Savannah Bananas (joined by the trick shot artists and Texas natives from Dude Perfect), who themselves have made college venues a staple of their summer tour, with scheduled stops in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Lincoln, Nebraska, among other destinations.

Nor is it the only college venue Argentina will play in before officially opening the defense of their title on June 16 against Algeria in Kansas City. The Argentinians will take on Iceland at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium next Tuesday as part of Road to 26, a series of friendlies featuring some of the top draws in the World Cup.

A New Approach

In College Station, population 120,000, this is all part of a reimagining of how to do business. This is a school whose fans made the cheer “Gig ’em!” (that’s Aggie speak for “go get ’em”) famous and which regularly packs a football stadium that holds nearly as many people as the town it’s located in, so think of this as the gig-em economy. Even as members of the Southeastern Conference and beneficiaries of its 10-year, $3 billion media deal, Texas A&M is in an arms race to keep up — especially to fund its football program coming off only its second 11-win season this century and its first appearance in the College Football Playoff. A few years ago, the Board of Regents passed a motion to host two major events at Kyle Field each year. In 2024 that meant a concert by country music star George Strait and a Brazil-Mexico soccer match. In 2025, though, there were no similar events, and the feedback from the local business community was immediate and unmistakeable: We need those events.

“Not having them in 2025 was a struggle for everyone,” said Alex Aguerro, sports sales manager at Visit College Station. “No matter how much revenue you and donors you have, extra revenue is always a factor.”

In a town and a state as football-crazed as College Station, Texas, it’s no surprise that everything is viewed through a pigskin-tinted focus. And so the Savannah Bananas weekend was comparable, Aguerro says, to “a small football weekend” of about $21 million in direct economic impact, which “aligns with a smaller SEC game against, say, Kentucky.”

Early expectations are that the soccer match will draw around 70,000 fans, which would be about 15,000 fewer than the Brazil-Mexico match two years ago that netted the athletic department $2.6 million that it would not otherwise have earned. Throw in the 4,000–5,000 spectators who are anticipated for the track meet and the day could bring in $12 million to the city, said Angie Bertinot, marketing manager for Visit College Station.

The only downside is that both events are happening on the same day, muting some of the impact the community might otherwise feel. “It’s not a perfect scenario,” Bertinot said with a laugh.

Still, it’s indicative of the evolution A&M and College Station are making, and part of it is due to the leadership changes that have taken place at the school, which has an enrollment of nearly 80,000 students. Dr. Susan Ballabina took over as president of Texas A&M last month, and Trev Alberts came aboard as athletics director in 2024. Now the school and the city are working closer than ever, with a common goal in mind, which Bertinot summarized as, “Let’s work together to make big things happen.”

Adding a Megaphone

Naturally, the immediate economic return isn’t the only upside to having major offseason events. “There’s this whole other piece, which is hard to put a number on, which is exposure,” said Bertinot. The track-and-field event will air on NBC on Saturday evening and includes a 30-second commercial for the city. Visit College Station will also have assets within the venues that will get exposure on television and, she added, “gives us a megaphone” to talk about the town. Then there’s the benefit of bringing thousands of first-time visitors to College Station.

Saturday’s dual events will not be College Station’s final time in the sports spotlight this summer. The Athletes Unlimited Softball League will host its postseason at Davis Diamond starting on July 23, starting with a play-in-game and then the best-of-three championship series with games to be televised on ESPN and ABC.

What Bertinot, Aguerro and their teams learn by hosting these events won’t be a secret. Visit College Station is part of a marketing group called Cities of the SEC that collaborates with one another and promotes their respective college towns, proving that even in the famously competitive landscape of college athletics, there is room for peace and harmony.

“There’s a lot of support and lessons learned: what are your concerts, what are your sponsorship agreements; there’s not a sense of keeping it to the vest,” said Bertinot. “We’re kind of sharing information back and forth across everything we’re doing.”

This weekend that means staking a claim in a crowded sports calendar for a town that is usually associated with fall Saturdays. In 2028 it will mean hosting another major concert. And by the end of the decade they hope it will mean the opening of a new baseball and softball complex that is still in the planning stages but would feature a 1,000-seat championship venue.

Beyond that lies a world of opportunity. In College Station and colleges across America, school may be out, but the season is never over.