Sailing is asking for government support. In Annapolis, Maryland, there is now a proposal for a National Sailing Hall of Fame. Interestingly, the site for the facility falls in a historic district, so the project apparently will require permission to knock down a building on the historic registry. Additionally, the location is in a flood plain, so an exemption of some sort is needed to get around restrictions limiting building in such an area.
But, of course, The Maryland Stadium Authority, builders of two stadiums in Baltimore and a variety of other projects around the state, are also involved. Here is the feasibility study of the National Sailing Hall of Fame.
I can’t tell for sure from the summary of the economic impact study, but it seems that either 2500 (5% of total visitors of 50000) new visitors will spend $3.5 million, that’s $1400 each, or that there are projected to be one million total visitors to the National Sailing Hall of Fame (50000 being 5% of the total). The NFL Hall of Fame reports about 200 thousand visitors in 2007, which makes me strongly doubt the Sailing HOF will draw a million.
The summary also suggests that 42 jobs will be created, and generate $1.7 million in labor income. That works out to over $40,000 per job, which seems a lot for docents at a museum that draws at best a few hundred visitors a day.
Note: Discussion is based on the bottom end estimates of attendance at the National Sailing Hall of Fame as described in the feasibility study.
