Deserted icons: No College World Series hits Omaha hard

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Rich Tokheim's sports apparel shop is right across the street from TD Ameritrade Park. More than half his annual revenue comes in the 11 or 12 days of the College World Series each June.

“We're here," he said, "because of the College World Series. It's just so many people.”

Those people won't be in Omaha this year. The Division I baseball championship, decided in this city of just under a half-million for the past 70 years, is a prominent sports casualty of the coronavirus pandemic — a blow not just to the ledgers and coffers of local businesses but to the identity of the city itself.

Omaha has long prided itself on hosting the eight-team tournament and even built $100 million TD Ameritrade Park a decade ago in exchange for an NCAA promise to keep the CWS here through at least 2035.

The 24,000-seat stadium is dark 50 of 52 weeks a year, except for Creighton home games in front of small crowds, but for those two weeks each summer, it's the place to be. More than 332,000 people attended the 15 games a year ago and thousands more were outside tailgating, patronizing bars and restaurants, or visiting the Omaha Baseball Village shopping and entertainment area.

Average occupancy in the metro area's 15,000 hotel rooms was 85% during last year's CWS, with a high of 95% on opening day. Thousands of full- and part-time jobs are tied to the event. The economic impact has been estimated at $74 million per year, with more than $6 million generated in local and state taxes.

All that is lost in 2020.

“My heart bleeds for those folks,” said Kathryn Morrissey, executive director of the local organizing group College World Series Inc. “It's their Christmas, our Mardi Gras for our community, when we celebrate.”

Instead, there is a void this summer for...