City Council unanimously voted to lend the bid committee $129,000 for the 2018 World Women’s Curling Championship.
Once the dollars and cents are added up, the final application will go in. Council could hear within the next week whether or not it’s successful. The bid by the city and the North Bay Granite Curling Club is currently before Curling Canada. Should the committee not get provincial funding they will forfeit their share of gross ticket sales to the city.
Council also voted in favour of placing a bid for the 2018 World Women’s Curling Championships. Councillor Mark King says this is a good investment for the city. King is hopeful that the money council is lending to the bid will eventually come back through the process. Before even having the event locked down, 650 pre-event tickets have already been sold. King says he’s heard from people on the ground that the event could generate as much as $6,000,000 of benefit to the city.
The other appealing prospect according to King is the full exposure from TSN. The event would take place in Memorial Gardens over a span of 10 days, and TSN would be here for about eight days. King says this is an opportunity to showcase what North Bay has as a city. He says you can’t buy this kind of exposure, and he’s glad the city is fortunate enough to have dedicated volunteers who put this together.
