Shawnee Regional Sports Park: Promise vs. Actual Outcome
A retrospective study of municipal recreation policy, Oklahoma State University's 2011 economic-impact model, Lions Club Ballfields, public investment, and Oklahoma's youth-sports tournament market, 2000–2026.
From projected demand to facility-level outcomes
Core question: What institutional, facility, governance, public-finance, management, marketing, and market conditions determine whether projected sports-tourism demand is converted into sustained activity at the public facility for which the projection was originally made?
Expanded question: How did Shawnee balance existing community youth-sports infrastructure—particularly Lions Club Ballfields—against a multi-year effort to develop a new Regional Sports Park justified partly through regional tournament tourism and economic impact?
Planning, finance & what OSU actually modeled
The recovered December 2011 OSU report establishes that 13 tournaments and 35 teams were peer-community averages. OSU illustrated 7, 13 and 17 baseball-tournament scenarios; 17 was the high scenario. The later discussion of potentially 30 tournaments was municipal discussion, not an OSU forecast.
Lions Club Ballfields & the Regional Park
Existing community infrastructure
The minutes document Lions Club capital needs, volunteer maintenance, user-group proposals, field preparation, cleanup/restoration, and later public concern about facility adequacy.
Regional sports-tourism infrastructure
The Regional Park developed through changing sites, advisory committees, grants and leases, dedicated financing, professional planning, a 160-acre acquisition, Jacobs Engineering, and OSU's 2011 study.
From municipal promise to actual outcome
What OSU actually modeled
The recovered 33-page Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service report by Dave Shideler and Joe Benton allows the academic model to be separated from later municipal expectations. OSU explicitly stated that its analysis did not address feasibility, assumed tournament visitors would come if the park were built, and said the validity of that assumption depended on suitable facilities, appropriate maintenance and effective marketing. OSU also stated that the report was not a benefit-cost analysis.
Primary-source interpretation: OSU modeled economic effects that could follow if tournament activity occurred. The report did not guarantee that Shawnee would capture 13, 17 or any other number of tournaments.
Economic output is not City revenue
OSU presented three visitor-spending methods and modeled broader direct, indirect and induced economic effects. Under its highest event-volume scenario — 17 baseball tournaments and 2 soccer tournaments — total annual output ranged from approximately $1.79 million to $4.05 million. OSU separately estimated Shawnee retail sales-tax collections for the same event schedule at approximately $41,909 to $94,917.
Analytical boundary: These figures should not be turned into a retrospective benefit-cost calculation. OSU expressly said its report was not a feasibility or benefit-cost analysis. The comparison demonstrates that community economic output, City tax revenue and facility operating cost are different measures.
Three methods, not one promised impact number
Because the proposed park had no operating history, OSU constructed three visitor-spending estimates. For a baseball tournament, direct out-of-town visitor spending ranged from $51,317 using community-based data to $116,224 using federal travel reimbursement assumptions. The state-travel-data estimate was $72,366.
OSU baseball peer communities — 2011 forward
This is not a replication of OSU's survey. OSU used community-reported participation across facilities; Hidden Valley observes public USSSA event records.
Shawnee, Lions Club & FireLake
Research-model measures from the September 10, 2026 Hidden Valley dataset. Calculated fees are not proof of actual receipts, profit, municipal revenue, tax liability, or disposition of funds.
Recovered OSU report + Open Records Request 26-99
Recovered primary source: The original December 2011 OSU report is now available and resolves the central question of what the academic analysis itself said. Read it alongside the 2011 City Commission presentation and the 2026 records-request history.
The 2026 records search
The request sought the study, one-page summary, supporting data, contracts, communications, web-posting records, and later reliance records. The City's response stated that an extensive review found no responsive documents.
Open Records Request PDF
The contemporaneous record
The 2011 meeting documents that City staff possessed and distributed the full OSU study and a one-page summary, described a City contract with OSU Extension, and said the report would be posted online.
Watch MeetingConditional model → implementation → observed outcome
The recovered primary source makes the longitudinal interpretation more precise. OSU did not promise that the Regional Sports Park would succeed; it modeled economic effects conditional on attracting tournament visitors. The later evidence supports the existence of a meaningful regional tournament market, but peer outcomes were heterogeneous. Municipal Shawnee does not show a comparable post-2010 USSSA baseball footprint in the bounded Hidden Valley dataset, while FireLake documents substantial regional activity. The municipal record also identifies continuing community-facility needs and implementation barriers involving access, utilities, improvement cost, management, marketing and competing capital priorities.
What the evidence does—and does not—establish
USSSA represents only one sanctioning ecosystem. Municipality fields are not identical to economic catchment areas. OSU survey variables and Hidden Valley variables are related but not identical. OSU explicitly did not estimate facility demand or conduct a feasibility or benefit-cost analysis. The records-request response establishes a documentary disconnect, not why the materials became unavailable. The case study distinguishes documented facts, calculated measures, retrospective comparisons, and hypotheses requiring additional records.
Shawnee Regional Sports Park: Promise vs. Actual Outcome | 2000–2026