The Senior Little League Softball World Series is back in Delaware after a 2 year COVID hiatus.
This is the 17th year since 2004 that the Lower Sussex Little League complex in Roxanna is hosting the World Series. But the cost to welcome teams from around the world is going up.
World Series Director Martin Donovan says once a team wins regionals, the kids don’t pay a dime to come to the World Series. And while that remains true this year, inflation has put a strain on the events’ finances.
“We’re not raising twice as much but our expenses are twice as much," Donovan said. "People don't realize how much it costs, but Little League International helps quite a bit too. But just to housing for example, we're spending $150,000 for the motels, we're spending $40,000 for a caterer, the last series we spent, I think it was $17,000 for busing, we'll probably spend double that, 34 or $35,000. So those are fixed costs and there is nothing that we can do about it.”
Donovan adds whether it’s a T-ball game or the World Series, Little League never charges admission - so there’s no revenue from ticket sales. They are about $50,000 short of their $150,000 goal to fund housing, food, and transportation for players and other amenities needed at the ballpark.
However, Donovan says the tournament always brings a small boost to the Sussex economy.
“We probably get 2000 people a night depending on how our schedule works up," Donovan said. "We find people who take their vacation and come to this because we try to play our games at night for a couple of reasons. One is the heat but two is that it gives people who want to come here and watch some good softball, it also gives them the opportunity to go to the beach, go to the outlets, do sightseeing, whatever they want until three to five o'clock when the games start.”
There is an extra local hype to this year’s tourney. In addition to Lower Sussex Little League in Frankford qualifying automatically as tournament host, Camden-Wyoming Little League won the East Region to get in.
They face off in the tournaments’ first opening round game Monday night at 6 p.m.
There are five U.S. teams and four internationals from the Philippines, Canada, the Netherlands, and Puerto Rico.
The First State has won the championship twice, Laurel in 2011 and Georgetown in 2017.
