RALEIGH — The NHL All-Star Weekend held in January brought the Triangle an estimated $11.4 million in spending from out-of-town visitors - a number thought to be the highest of any weekend Raleigh sports event.
Three days of hockey-related activity brought more than twice the revenue created by Raleigh's participation in the 2008 NCAA Tournament, according to the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau.
More than 60,000 people headed to downtown Raleigh and to the RBC Center for the three days of hockey events, said Doug Grissom, assistant director of the Raleigh Convention Center, at the time.
The TV broadcast of the game averaged 1.5 million viewers and peaked at nearly 2 million viewers in the final minutes.
Afterward, a Sports Illustrated columnist called Raleigh the weekend's "biggest star."
The $11.4 million figure does not include spending by people in the Triangle, so the effect could be much greater, said Scott Dupree, vice president for sports marketing of the convention bureau.
It also does not include a multiplier, which often is used to show money from an event passing through several different hands.
Raleigh's biggest event
"NHL All-Star Weekend ranks as the biggest single-weekend sporting event ever hosted in Raleigh, in terms of direct visitor spending," Dupree said. "It was a huge success any way you measure it."
The weekend also generated $49 million in media value, according to Meltwater Group, a San Francisco monitoring and analytics firm. That figure represents roughly what it would have cost to get the same international online and TV exposure through advertising.
josh.shaffer@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4818
