Money Ball | Florida’s Sport Economy
Sports’ Economic Impact Grows. John Webb has proven quite the forecaster. When asked last year about the $36 billion economic impact that sports and recreation has on the state’s economy, the president...
View ArticleWorld Cup Soccer in Orlando
Orlando City Soccer’s new stadium shows the (World) Cup spills over in Florida and across the region. The Orlando City Soccer Club in mid-June unveiled the artist’s rendering of the team’s new stadium....
View ArticleCopa del Mundo de fútbol en Orlando
Nuevo estadio de Orlando City Soccer muestra el (Mundial) Copa derrama en la Florida y en toda la región. El Fútbol Club Orlando City a mediados de junio dio a conocer la representación del artista del...
View ArticleEconomic Development Strategies – From The DEO
The debate about the roles of the private and public sectors in economic development often misses the point it’s less about the scope and limit of the sectors’ respective roles and more about the...
View ArticleFlorida Football: Pigskin Paydirt
Florida’s college football programs bring big bucks to their local communities. The fact that major college football and basketball have become “big business” isn’t exactly news. The proof is in the...
View ArticleSun, Sand & Sutures – MEDICAL TOURISM
With 100 million visitors envisioned in the not too distant future, Florida has all the right stuff to become a major player in the emerging MEDICAL TOURISM field. The man who arguably was history’s...
View ArticleBowled Over
Florida’s Bowl Games put up big numbers and the newest one has a special purpose. Cure Bowl. Some decry the ever-expanding number of college football bowl games, while others point to the economic...
View ArticleHats Off!
Two Stetson Hatters Baseball Alums Win Coveted MLB Awards Consider for a moment college baseball’s most prestigious programs: USC, LSU, Texas, Arizona State, Cal State Fullerton and Miami. Between...
View ArticleSpring Training 2015
Spring training has become big business. A battle is growing over the economic spoils. The post Spring Training 2015 appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleCitrus Greening in Florida
In the days before Walt Disney made Florida a mecca for theme parks, back when South Beach was merely the southern end of Miami Beach and a Jaguar was a luxury car and not an NFL player, citrus was...
View ArticleTampa Bay Rays Future?
They’re not Les Rayons yet. Despite talk that began surfacing last fall about the Tampa Bay Rays moving, possibly to Montreal, the Rays will open the 2015 season at Tropicana Field on April 6, and St....
View ArticleTop 10 Florida Movies
Based on Florida’s illustrious movie past, Film Florida’s dream of reinvigorating the state’s film industry via a replenished film tax credit is far from a Hollywood dream. Hundreds of amazing motion...
View ArticleTop 5 Florida TV Shows
Please check out our list of what we consider the best Florida TV shows both set and filmed in Florida. We want to bring attention to important tax credit legislation that we hope is included in the...
View ArticleIf You Build It…
Florida is poised for a major investment in sports facilities. ORLANDO CITY’S STADIUM Orlando City Soccer has taken the traditional professional sports team playbook and torn it to shreds. Rather than...
View ArticleWhat Does “Grexit” Mean for Florida?
Greeks voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject the bailout package offered by its European Union trading partners, a move that could ultimately force Greece out of the eurozone. For weeks, pundits have...
View ArticleFlorida and the Emmys
The Primetime Emmys are, by far, the most frustrating of the old-line awards shows. The television academy is prone to keep nominating once-great shows past their prime, ignoring great newcomers for...
View ArticleLawton Chiles’ Legacy and Florida Redistricting
Former Gov. Lawton Chiles was a larger than life figure, a man who won his first U.S. Senate campaign by walking more than 1,000 miles from Pensacola to Key West to raise his name identification and...
View ArticleSpeaker Boehner and Florida Political Ripples
Florida reacts to John Boehner's resignation from Congress. The post Speaker Boehner and Florida Political Ripples appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleFlorida Center Stage in MLB Playoffs
(Editor’s Note: Sports has become an economic development engine in Florida, so today we introduce our FORWARD Friday column, looking at news and developments affecting this vital industry.) Florida,...
View ArticleFlorida’s Daniel Murphy Stays Hot in NLCS
Murphy's Law has taken on a whole new meaning. The post Florida’s Daniel Murphy Stays Hot in NLCS appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleFlorida Needs to get “Reel” about Film Industry
Let’s get real. Or, more appropriately, let’s get reel. As the Florida Legislature looks ahead to a renewed discussion of rebates to the film industry, let’s set aside the rhetoric, forget that a lot...
View ArticleOrlando New Soccer Capital
Orlando – the soccer capital of the Southeast? Maybe. Orlando City Soccer this week announced its expansion into women’s soccer with the formation of the Orlando Pride (Lions, Pride . . . get it?). The...
View ArticleMiami’s Al Golden – Fired in 1981?
The seeds of Al Golden’s downfall at the University of Miami were planted in 1981, for that was the year everything began to change in college football. It was the year the Hurricanes upset No. 1 Penn...
View ArticleFlorida’s Top Horror Movies
Earlier this year, we published a list of our 10 best movies that were set and filmed in Florida. With Halloween on the horizon, it seems only appropriate that we offer up the FORWARD Florida list of...
View ArticleSouth Florida Super Bowl Blues
South Florida’s Sun Life Stadium was state-of-the-art when it opened in 1987, and many fans still consider it a superior place to watch football. So why does Miami Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross feel he...
View ArticleFlorida vs. Georgia: the Movie
Nothing personifies the Florida vs. Georgia rivalry like the annual football game between the states’ flagship universities. The so-called “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” in Jacksonville is...
View ArticleJames Bond in Florida
Spectre, the latest James Bond film, killed at the box office this weekend (presumably it had a license to do so), raking in $73 million in its U.S. opening. That got us to thinking about Bond’s...
View ArticleHunger Games Creates a Georgia Industry
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 opens Thursday night in theaters around the country and is expected to be one of this fall’s biggest blockbusters. The fourth and final film in the wildly popular...
View ArticleRampaging (USF) Bulls
Pssst . . . can you keep a secret? The South Florida Bulls may well be back. Hard-core Bulls fans already knew this, but the team served notice to the rest of the American Athletic Conference – and the...
View ArticleFlorida Sets the Stage
State’s Film Infrastructure: Primed and Ready One of the chief arguments from those who oppose reviving Florida’s film, television and digital media financial program is that it makes no sense to...
View ArticleFrost Comes to Central Florida
To understand how great is the potential of Scott Frost, UCF’s new head football coach, consider first the people who have recruited him, coached him and mentored him during his football career. A...
View ArticleStay Tuned in the Stadium
Take one part cutting-edge digital technology, one part old-school broadcasting and one part homegrown business ingenuity, mix them together in a 60,000-seat stadium in Orlando and what do you get?...
View ArticleFlorida Bowl Game Bounty
Selection Sunday (Dec. 6) may have been a big day for college football fans but it was an even bigger day for the economies of the cities that will host a record 40 bowl games this December and January...
View ArticleFlorida MIA in Florida Movies
For the Louisiana Film Industry, it’s “Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler” As many Floridians spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s watching football and going to the movies (some of which are set...
View ArticleMaking Cents of the Census
We’re about to talk about census data. Stop. Don’t click on another link or start to doze. We promise it will be interesting. OK, then, here it goes: In mid-December, the Census Bureau released revised...
View ArticleThe Case for Gase
So, it’s Adam Gase’s turn to try to return the Miami Dolphins to glory. He certainly sounds like he’s ready for the challenge, despite becoming the league’s youngest coach at 37. “I’ve been in this...
View ArticleFootball Wars: L.A. Awakens
California poses a challenge to Florida's Super Bowl supremacy. The National Football League is back in Los Angeles. The post Football Wars: L.A. Awakens appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleWill The Super Bowl Return to Florida?
FORWARD Florida highlights past Super Bowls in the Sunshine State and looks into the next possible landing spot for the "Big Game." The post Will The Super Bowl Return to Florida? appeared first on...
View ArticleEconomic Development: The Battle in Florida
Editor’s note: Just after we published this morning, the House announced passage of HB 1325. The old adage that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” may get twisted every possible way today (Feb....
View ArticleFlorida’s Spring Training Bonanza
Baseball’s Annual Ritual Generates Millions for the State On Tuesday (March 1), the new year began for those who live by the baseball calendar, as major league teams squared off against each other for...
View ArticleMapping Florida’s Primaries
What does this election season mean for Florida? The post Mapping Florida’s Primaries appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleWrestleMania Returns to Orlando
Anyone trying to gauge how far professional wrestling has come need look no farther than last week’s announcement that WrestleMania 33 is coming to the Orlando Citrus Bowl in April 2017. Gov. Rick...
View ArticleInvictus Warriors Come to Florida
Too often the “impact” of sporting events is measured purely in economic terms. With the 2nd Invictus Games, slated for this Sunday (May 8) through May 12 at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at Disney World...
View ArticleSuper Bowl, a Record and Big Bucks Return to Florida
The Super Bowl is heading to South Florida in 2020. The region is expected to score big in economic impact. The post Super Bowl, a Record and Big Bucks Return to Florida appeared first on FORWARD...
View ArticleBig 12 Expansion Hopes for UCF and USF
Discussion of the Big 12 Conference’s likely expansion – and what it might mean for the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida – bring two conversations to mind. The first...
View ArticleThe Big 12, Florida and Television
In the first of our stories on the Big 12 Conference’s potential expansion and the possibility of the University of Central Florida or the University of South Florida joining the conference, we...
View ArticleFlorida-Tennesse Rivalry: Showtime
When Florida takes the field in Knoxville later today against Tennessee, there will be an urgency surrounding the game not seen in nearly 20 years. That’s in part because the Volunteers, after several...
View ArticleWith Big 12, Florida May Get Last Laugh
Big 12 expansion hopes dashed, but Florida schools may have the last laugh. The post With Big 12, Florida May Get Last Laugh appeared first on FORWARD Florida.
View ArticleMiami’s Orange Bowl – The 10 Best (Revised)
Before the CapitalOne Orange Bowl kicked off yesterday we wrote: “Tonight’s matchup between traditional powerhouses Michigan and Florida State continues this rich tradition. A national championship...
View ArticleFlorida’s FIRST Baseball All-Star Game
Economists might disagree with our reasoning, but – at least as far as Marlins Park in Miami is concerned – the debate about public funding of sports stadiums should be settled. It’s a great thing – at...
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