Rock Hill Takes Center Stage for BMX World Championships

There’s something for everybody in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which sits about 20 miles south of Charlotte. At the same time it was hosting 3,500 riders at the 2024 UCI BMX Racing World Championships at the local BMX Supercross Track, there was a youth basketball tournament across town at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center with 250 teams.

Few markets of its size host the quantity or diversity of sporting events this city will see over the next few months. In addition to becoming a hub for youth sports, the city has found its place with niche events ranging from the American Cornhole League to the Innova disc golf company. Winthrop University provides one of the best disc golf courses in the world, which regularly hosts the collegiate national championship, and it has one of the most successful esports teams in the country.

“We do basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, cheer, dance, cornhole, esports, disc golf — a little bit of everything,” said John Taylor, director of Rock Hill Parks, Recreation and Tourism. “If it’ll bring money to Rock Hill, we’ll try it. Our weekends are always busy and now we’re real big on trying to push the Monday through Thursday sales.”

Rock Hill, part of the Olde English District, has welcomed many different ancillary events in recent years as part of ESPN Ocho, which brings some of the most unique events to air on ESPN, including slippery stairs, air guitar, pillow fighting and a lot more.

Ready to Rock

A recent visit in May was highlighted by the UCI BMX Racing World Championships, which do not come to the United States very often. The only two times the U.S. has hosted the event since 2001 were in Rock Hill in 2017, and then again in 2024.

“Rock Hill provides us with a fantastic facility and the city of Rock Hill does absolutely everything to make sure that the UCI is welcome,” said Norm McCann, UCI BMX racing consultant. “This facility is great for the riders, no matter the weather conditions, as they were even able to compete in the rain this week.”

The Rock Hill BMX Supercross Track is special for several reasons. Among them are the Soiltac surface the track implements, making world-class competition possible even in a driving rainstorm. The track is also one of the few in the U.S. that does not require any type of membership, which has led to many BMX riders in the city becoming good enough to qualify for the world championships, including Zach Yonce and his 14-year-old son Gage.

“We’re here four days a week, every week,” Yonce said of he and both his sons. “It’s amazing to have something like this here and to see how much my kids have excelled in the two and a half years that they’ve been competing in BMX racing. To get to this level, you’ve got to give credit to this track and being able to come here and put in hard work year-round.”

Zach was eliminated from competition before the quarterfinals of his 45 to 49-year-old Cruiser division. Gage finished 53rd overall in his age group after the final rounds were cancelled due to lightning while 12-year-old Gavin just missed out on qualifying for the event.

“People don’t understand how big this event is,” said Zach Yonce, who with his wife, Christine, own Yonce Motor and Tire Company, a third generation family business. “People from all over the world come here and spend money. … I’ve had people who drove here from Canada whose cars were messed up on the way come into my shop so we can get them fixed up and on their way. This event trickles down to every business in the city.”

Taylor says in 2017, the UCI BMX Racing World Championships in Rock Hill generated about $29 million in estimated economic impact for the region and he expects the 2024 version to rise to around $35 million.

“This venue was built to host national and international events and we’re just so proud of our community for embracing an event like the UCI,” Taylor said. “It just makes us excited and it generates a lot of economic impact in our community.”

Providing Southern Hospitality

It’s quite a feat for a city of approximately 75,000 residents to host a UCI World Championship once. To do it twice in a seven-year period when the event has previously been in cities such as Paris and Sao Paolo is astonishing. So how does Rock Hill do it?

“It’s good old Southern hospitality,” Taylor said. “We wrap our arms around this event and we want people to feel welcome. And then we’ve got one of the world-renowned tracks. Our maintenance people do a great job and the UCI knows that. So they’re comfortable with coming back here time after time.”

McCann says in addition to the facility, Rock Hill offers the comforts of feeling at home.

“We bring a big entourage and we stay in hotels across the city and we utilize restaurants and all sorts of amenities that are available, and everybody that I’ve met has been just so happy that we’re here,” McCann said. “But they’re also willing to do anything that they can to make sure that everybody who’s involved with this event has a fantastic time in Rock Hill.”

The community turns out in a big way, with large crowds each day of competition. In 2017, there were 55,000 unique spectators through the gates and Taylor says the attendance was tracking beyond that number halfway through this year’s event.

“We really do sell that Southern hospitality; because if this event goes to a bigger city, the event could kind of get swallowed up,” Taylor said. “So we sell that one-on-one partnership with UCI and with our partners that are helping to put on this event. And I think that makes the UCI and the BMX community feel like, ‘Hey, they love us being here and they embrace us.’”

The UCI BMX Racing World Championships are a spectacle to watch — not just for the on-track action. There are 3,500 competitors between the ages of 8 and 72, with more than 800 riders competing in 400 races each day.

“With any venue, it’s not just the bricks and mortar that make the difference — it’s the people,” McCann said. “And when we came to do our site visit, the city really was behind it and wanted to ensure that they could provide us with the confidence that, as a city or a small town, Rock Hill was able to actually deliver. And I think it would be fair to say that in 2017, they certainly delivered. And that’s another reason why we’re back here now in 2024.”

The Rock Hill team hosted a contingent from Copenhagen throughout the week, as Denmark will host worlds in 2025. After stops in Brisbane in 2026 and France in 2027, the event will be in the U.S. in 2028 in Houston, which was scheduled to host in 2020 before the pandemic canceled the event. As for Rock Hill, might it be back in the rotation sooner than later?

“I wouldn’t like to let anything out of the bag, but let’s just say maybe we might have a drink or two over it,” McCann said.

Punching Above its Weight

The UCI event was Taylor’s swan song as he plans to retire next month after 44 years. He estimates the city does about $100 million per year in sports tourism. It all started with Cherry Park, built in 1985, which includes five baseball/softball fields and four rectangular fields for lacrosse and soccer.

“It’s the vision that the city council and city managers had … to make sports tourism a focal point for our city because of our location and proximity to Charlotte,” said Brian Jones, Rock Hill Sports and Event Center supervisor. “That vision has carried on and obviously been very successful throughout the years. The success of Cherry Park birthed the Rock Hill Tennis Center and Manchester Meadows and that success has led to all these other complexes.”

The Rock Hill Tennis Center is a public facility that has 11 courts and hosts high school, college and pro tournaments. Manchester Meadows is a large complex with six grass soccer fields and two artificial turf fields. In addition to hosting soccer tournaments, it’s where ESPN presents its “Ocho” programming.

The city even has a velodrome. However, even with all these facilities at Rock Hill’s disposal, the city was missing an indoor arena, which changed in 2019 when the $35 million Rock Hill Sports and Event Center opened.

The RHSEC has a main court area that can be used for eight basketball courts or 16 volleyball courts. It also features a 1,300-seat Championship Court that has hosted a plethora of events. The facility in May 2020 hosted an American Cornhole League event, one of the first sports events to take place after the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

“It really was the last piece,” Jones said. “We had the outdoor sports covered and this now allows us 77,000 square feet of space to get creative with. It allows us as a sales team and parks department to host everything from sporting events to high school graduations to antique shows.”

Jones says the amount of facilities Rock Hill can offer is a selling point.

“We own, operate and service the facilities here, so it’s really a one-stop shop,” Jones said. “And when an event organizer meets the supervisor of a facility, that’s the person whose hand they’re going to shake when they arrive and that’s their contact while the event is going on. In most cities, the sales department might be the CVB or DMO, and then they have to contact the Parks and Rec department about using facilities. Rock Hill is unique in that it’s the sales team, the DMO and the owners and operators of the facilities.” 

Uniquely Rock Hill

While other cities have the same types of venues as Rock Hill, certain elements are exclusive to the city.

Innova, one of the largest manufacturers of disc golf plates, calls Rock Hill home and collaborates with Winthrop to host many large disc golf events, including the U.S. Disc Golf Championship and College Disc Golf National Championship. The American Cornhole League has its national headquarters in same building as the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center. Anytime there’s a major cornhole competition airing on television, chances are it’s happening in Rock Hill.

And Winthrop — known for its men’s basketball team — has a powerhouse esports program that has amassed an impressive collection of trophies since its inception in 2019. Winthrop’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and League of Legends teams won national championships at the 2024 Collegiate Esports Commissioners Cup and the National Esports Collegiate Conference competitions in Arlington, Texas. Winthrop also received the CECC School of the Year Award.

Winthrop Coach Josh Sides recently moved his team into a new 6,500-square-foot space down the hallway from the ACL headquarters and is hoping Winthrop’s success will bring large esports events to Rock Hill.

“Winthrop being a top school in collegiate esports is helping to drive those conversations on our end and hopefully for those who work for the city of Rock Hill as well,” Sides said. “I think we’re moving toward esports tournaments being hosted in Rock Hill. We already host the BMX World Championship, disc golf, cornhole, the Ocho. These are community led events and I feel like esports can be another feather in the cap for Rock Hill.”