County commissioner calls award of bid ‘huge’ win
During the Sarasota County commissioners’ reports to each other as part of their regular meeting on Oct. 8, Commissioner Ron Cutsinger teased that he had “been a little upset” with County Administrator Jonathan Lewis over an Oct. 1 email that Lewis sent to the board members.
In that communication, Lewis announced that Nathan Benderson Park had been selected to serve as “the host for the 2028 World Rowing Senior, Under 23 and Under 19 Championships.”
“I had hoped to celebrate [that]” in remarks on Oct. 8, Cutsinger added during the commission meeting last week.
Cutsinger is the commission’s liaison to the Nathan Benderson Park Board of Directors.
“That’s going to be a huge event for Sarasota County; a lot of exciting things to go along with that,” Cutsinger continued of the 2028 Championships. “That is a huge win for us.”
In his Oct. 1 email to the commissioners, Lewis wrote, “This mega event combines three world championships into one event in Olympic years and will be held in August of 2028.” He added, “We are pleased that the Commission’s initiative to work on expanding sports tourism in Sarasota continues to thrive.”
An attachment to the email appears to be a social media post from the World Rowing organization, announcing the selection of Benderson Park for the event.
The World Rowing website explains, “The World Rowing Championship regatta is the biggest annual World Rowing event and the most important of the season. It is held at the end of each season, usually around August and includes Olympic and International boat classes. The regatta spans eight days with a progression system used from heats through to finals. The eight days ensures that there is sufficient rest time between races for the athletes.”
The Sarasota News Leader learned from online research that during the Sept. 29 meeting of the 2025 Ordinary Congress of World Rowing — held in Shanghai, China — 105 out of 121 votes were cast in favor of the 2028 Championships being conducted at Benderson Park.
After the county-owned facility hosted the World Rowing Championships in September 2017, research undertaken for Visit Sarasota County, the county’s tourism marketing organization, showed that the event just missed organizers’ $25-million goal for economic impact on the state.
The grand total was $22,613,500, Joseph St. Germain, then-president of Downs & St. Germain Research in Tallahassee, told members of the Sarasota County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Nov. 16, 2017.
The firm found that direct spending throughout the state of Florida by people from outside Sarasota and Manatee counties who attended the event was $13,705,200, St. Germain added in his presentation. Within the two counties, event attendees poured $18,650,300 into the economies of the two counties through direct and indirect spending, he pointed out. That money went to accommodations, restaurants, grocery stores and attractions; the figure included outlay for transportation, shopping and entertainment, St. Germain said.
The number of attendees from outside the two counties was 6,544, he noted.
Moreover, St. Germain told the county’s advisory council members, on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 10 the highest rating — attendees rated the World Rowing Championships 9.1, while athletes produced an 8.7 cumulative rating.
“You have to understand,” Virginia Haley, then the president of Visit Sarasota County, told the Tourist Development Council members: “These are very picky customers. … Dealing with elite-level athletes, we were amazed at these ratings.”
Additionally, Haley reported to county leaders via email that the 2017 World Rowing Championships resulted in “the best September on record in terms of hotel occupancy, room rate, number of visitors and their spending,”
Just two years later, in 2019, Benderson Park hosted the Under 23s World Rowing Championships.
A World Rowing news release issued on July 17, 2019 reported that that event had drawn “nearly 700 rowers from 53 nations.”
The release added, “Nathan Benderson Park has become a regular host of international events most recently host the 2018 World Rowing Masters Regatta and the 2017 World Rowing Championships.”