Pinellas County’s sports tourism industry is bringing thousands of athletes and their families to local hotels, restaurants and businesses. But there’s a problem: The county doesn’t have enough of the right kinds of fields to accommodate some of the tournaments looking to come here.
Les Porter, founder of Clearwater-based Porter Development, has expanded his plans for the Clearwater Sports & Recreation Campus to include a 220,000-square-foot indoor Fieldhouse. The addition would provide eight basketball courts convertible to 16 volleyball courts, along with flexible space for indoor soccer, flag football, cheerleading, gymnastics and other activities.
The proposal includes 12 outdoor rectangular fields, indoor pickleball courts, padel courts and other recreational and entertainment amenities.
The expansion grew out of years of work: “I’ve been working to bring this indoor facility to Pinellas County since 2019,” Porter said. “We felt like there are more baseball diamonds than other types of fields. Pinellas doesn’t have a regional indoor facility to draw tournaments that can contribute in an economically impactful way.”
The development remains a proposal. Its financing, approvals and ultimate configuration have not been finalized. Pinellas has already demonstrated the financial pull of sports tourism, and it’s not the first time such a plea for more sports facilities has come before the Pinellas Commission.
Between Oct. 1, 2025, and mid-March 2026, the county hosted 53 sporting events that generated approximately 51,000 hotel room nights and $30 million in direct spending, according to Caleb Peterson, director of the Sports Commission for Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.
Last year, Clearwater hosted back-to-back NFCA and ESPN college softball tournaments, attracting 12 nationally ranked teams, including the country’s top two programs.
The Clearwater Fall Classic, an invitation-only amateur softball tournament, brought 82 teams to Pinellas, including 80 from outside Florida. Peterson estimated the event generated roughly 5,000 room nights.
Youth hockey tournaments have also drawn clubs from Canada, Chicago and other markets to the county’s four ice rinks in Clearwater and Oldsmar.
Yet the county’s ability to pursue additional business in soccer, lacrosse, football and other field sports has been constrained by the number and arrangement of available facilities.
“Our biggest challenge is checking the facilities box to have the requisite number of fields and space for tournaments,” Peterson told the county’s Tourist Development Council in March.
For tournament organizers, having enough fields in one location can be as important as having them at all. Large competitions may require multiple simultaneous games across age divisions, with families traveling between hotels and competition sites over several days.
“Right now, fields are spread out all over: one here, two there, but not enough volume in a single location,” Porter said.
The county has made investments to expand its athletic infrastructure. In February, the $26.5 million Sprowls Horizon Sports Park opened in Pinellas Park, adding a multipurpose field and other amenities.
Still, Porter sees an opportunity for a larger campus that could accommodate regional and statewide tournaments while serving local residents throughout the year, especially during the hotter summer months.
Sports tourism has an economic advantage over some other visitor markets: Tournament schedules can generate hotel stays across multiple days, including periods when traditional leisure demand is softer.
Those overnight stays also contribute to Pinellas County’s tourist development tax, commonly known as the “bed tax.”
The county levies a 6% tax on qualifying short-term accommodations, in addition to applicable state and local sales taxes. Revenue is used for tourism-related purposes authorized under Florida law, including destination marketing and certain facilities and projects that support tourism.
The county collected approximately $92.5 million in tourist development taxes during fiscal 2025, although that figure represents all qualifying lodging activity, not sports tourism alone.
For perspective, the 51,000 room nights Peterson attributed to sporting events during the first five and a half months of the 2025-26 fiscal year represent a substantial base of potential taxable lodging activity. The actual bed-tax contribution depends on room rates, exemptions and how many of those estimated nights translated into taxable stays.
Tournament visitors also spend money outside hotels, including at restaurants, stores, attractions and transportation businesses.
The proposed Fieldhouse would allow the campus to accommodate sports that don’t necessarily require outdoor turf, while providing relief from Florida’s summer heat and unpredictable weather.
Porter said residents repeatedly asked about basketball, volleyball and the availability of rectangular fields for soccer, lacrosse, football and recreational sports such as kickball.
“They wanted to get clarity on rectangular fields and the sports they could play,” he said. “We got a lot of questions about basketball and volleyball.”
The indoor component would also give tournament organizers flexibility when weather conditions disrupt outdoor competition.
Plans call for 24 pickleball courts to be moved indoors as part of the Clearwater Racquet Club, along with four padel courts.
The expansion brings the developer’s anticipated investment to approximately $300 million, although the final construction costs and financing structure have not been established.
In addition, Porter is proposing that the Fieldhouse serve as an emergency-response asset during hurricanes and other major storms.
The site is approximately 70 feet above sea level, according to development plans, and sits adjacent to Clearwater Executive Air Park.
The combination could make the facility useful for staging supplies, coordinating logistics and supporting emergency operations.
“I would like to sit collaboratively with Pinellas County and design the facility according to the county’s wish list,” he said. “Normally the county would retrofit to needs, but that doesn’t work as well as designing it in from the beginning.”
The project would also require addressing environmental and infrastructure issues associated with the former landfill property. The developer’s plans include pursuing a brownfield designation, undertaking appropriate environmental mitigation and upgrading aging stormwater systems.
The development team maintains that the project would place substantial new investment on the local property-tax rolls, contrasting it with the existing golf course’s tax status. The eventual taxable value and revenue would depend on the project’s ownership, financing and final assessment.
“It’s still rooted in sports and recreation,” Porter said of the expanded campus. “A facility of this size and scope can accommodate more needs.”