TEAMS Conference & Expo was an opportunity for CVB to showcase OKC

The Oklahoma City Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) hosted the annual TEAMS Conference & Expo Oct. 24-27 at the Oklahoma City Convention Center, where more than 1,000 attendees made up of members from national governing bodies for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic (USOPC) sports, event managers, representatives from sports commissions, sports tourism

officials and others met to collaborate and discuss best practices with the aim of improving their respective organizations and creating better opportunities for participation among athletes across the nation and growing the sports-event industry.

Some of the major topics explored during the four days included the 50th anniversary of Title IX , the state of youth sports and a focus on the latest trends in sports-related travel.

CVB’s Vice President of Sports Development Adam Wisniewski said he and other conference organizers were deliberate in their desire to focus on those topics, especially considering OKC’s history for hosting the NCAA Women’s College World Series, its involvement in youth sports and its relationship with the USOPC.

“All three of those touch points work really well with our destination and our story because it’s more than just bringing these people in and letting them see our city. We used the education and programming sessions to tell our story to really reinforce to everyone that Oklahoma City knows what they are doing and they are capable of a lot more,” Wisniewski said.

The TEAMS Conference & Expo convened in Oklahoma City at a time when sports events are leading the travel and tourism comeback, according to the TEAMS website, something that should serve OKC well for many years.

“TEAMS was an opportunity to showcase our city to our entire industry and to set a standard and tell our story. It was incredibly important because it meant that Oklahoma City is not just about softball and rowing and marathon going forward. It could mean a lot of other things. I don’t know if attendees came in with a preconception of what we are capable of, but they left seeing it with their own eyes and experiencing it firsthand,” Wisniewski said.

Showing members of all of the national governing boards and the USOPC who were in attendance throughout the nearly weeklong conference what Oklahoma City has already achieved and what it can continue to do moving forward was a critical goal for the CVB and Oklahoma City leadership. One of the ways they did that was by being deeply involved in planning the general and educational sessions.

CVB President Zac Craig shared the stage with various speakers, including former Olympians and Paralympians, on Tuesday for the best practices general session where they discussed the impact Title IX has had on women’s sports and the sports landscape across the U.S. since its passage in 1972. In addition, Wisniewski participated in a panel discussion on Thursday where he and fellow panelists representing USA Softball and the NCAA shared how they partnered over the years to grow the NCAA Women’s College World Series into one of the most-watched softball tournaments in the world.

Norman resident Bart Conner, a former U.S. Olympic gold medalist in men’s gymnastics, surprised attendees by announcing that Oklahoma City would host the USA Gymnastics Developmental National Championships May 9-14. Approximately 5,000 guests, including 1,700 athletes participating in the championship, will be in OKC for five nights.

This story originally appeared in the November 2022 edition of the VeloCity newsletter.