In the first three days of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament at the Show Me Center, more than 17,300 people walked through the turnstiles. While there, they bought hot dogs and nachos, sodas and pizza as they watched their favorite high school basketball team pursue the tournament trophy.

But a lot of those visitors, driving from as far away as Advance, Charleston and Morley, didn't make the Show Me Center their first stop. And for many it wasn't their last stop while they were in Cape Girardeau.

Jill Burton, a history teacher at Charleston High School, brought her daughter, Laura, a former cheerleader at the school, her sons Evan, 10, and Nathaniel, 16, and Nathaniel's girlfriend, Casey Castaneda, along for what is an annual family event.

Before the Saturday game between Charleston and Cape Girardeau Central High School, Burton took her family shopping. "We always go to the mall and to Target" during their visit to Cape Girardeau for the tournament, she said. After the game, they were to visit an area restaurant for dinner before making the 45-mile drive home.

In all, Burton estimated she will spend about $150 or more per day, not including gas costs, for the two days she and her family attend games during the four-day tournament. While not everybody will spend extra money outside the arena as part of their tournament experience, the tournament means big dollars at the Show Me Center concession stands, said Shannon Buford, director of marketing for the arena. While the numbers for the final day's attendance weren't available Saturday afternoon, there aren't many events at the Show Me Center that bring in an average of 6,000 people a day for four days.

"Our concessions guys are hopping and bopping during the tournament," Buford said.

The tournament is a small part of a much larger effort to market Cape Girardeau as a sports venue. The city may not have the facilities to draw an NCAA tournament event or land a minor-league baseball team, but attracting sporting events as a way to boost tourism and fill hotel rooms and restaurants is a big part of the city's marketing push.

In 2002, a Leadership Cape group project proposed establishing a sports commission with the objective of capitalizing on the economic and public relations impact that sports can have on a city. While the commission was never established, using sports as a marketing thrust has gained a lot of attention.

Sarah Vickery, director of marketing and sales for the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she attended the TEAMS, or Travel, Events and Management in Sports, conference this year in Louisville, Ky., and will be going to the National Association of Sports Commissions symposium in Omaha, Neb., in April. Attending those events has helped land the American Junior Golf Association Tournament, held at Dalhousie Country Club this year, and the Missouri State UBC bowling tournament.

"There are organizations for every sport under the sun," Vickery said. "Cape is not a destination that can hold something as big as a Junior Olympics, but we can hold regional qualifiers. Anything on a local or regional qualifying level, the ones that produce hotel rooms and travel with families, everything makes an impact."

Identifying events looking for venues and persuading them to use Cape Girardeau's facilities for their competition has become a larger portion of the task of marketing Cape Girardeau, said John Mehner, president and chief executive officer of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

The effort combines the resources of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the city's Parks and Recreation Department and Southeast Missouri State University. The city has a sports facilities guide for the area, and the focus is on finding events that fill hotel rooms. "They are huge moneymakers for the community," Mehner said. "They get people here and into restaurants and hotels."

Vickery said her job is to create the exposure for the city at the marketing expos that attract sports associations.

"What I really want to do is get a relationship built between us and the organizations, get a dialogue going and see what they want and what we can offer to get the wheels rolling," she said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126