EDW President & CEO Dayna Spiring, chair and past-chair of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the first woman to have her name engraved on the trophy, joined CJOB's Jim Toth live on March 15 to celebrate Winnipeg's 2025 Grey Cup winning bid and talk economic impact.
As Co-chair of the 2025 Grey Cup, alongside Payworks Payroll Services founder Barb Gamey, Spiring says that she was thrilled to be able to announce the win, and that we can look forward to unique festivities leading up to the game.
“2025 is going to be a Grey Cup to remember, we can promise you that! And our city will benefit in so many ways,” said Spiring.
"We have a model we use in our office that factors in all of the spending and spits out what we can expect to gain from big events like these. This is huge for the city and our tourism industry, of course, like the obvious, hotels and restaurants, but there are ripple effects throughout as well: car rentals, attraction visitation, our airport benefits from economic activity since it will be busier, corporations or other groups may have their own events which may require facility rentals and food & beverage service. All of these things factor in to economic impact, and we simply cannot underestimate how valuable that is.”
Using an economic impact calculator, which is the industry standard measurement tool, EDW estimates $30 million in direct spending alone from the Grey Cup. This calculation includes 31,000 paid tickets to attend the game and 25,000 room nights – assuming visitors stay Saturday and Sunday night. Plus, many of the industries that will gain the most were among the pandemic's hardest hit and are still recovering.
According to Spring, the host committee will want Manitobans to be involved, whether through fun activities of their own, or as volunteers.
“We will be looking to do some different things, we'll be thinking outside of the box, and creating and hosting expanded festivities leading up to the game. We know the Blue Bombers are Manitoba’s team. We want people across the province to be able to participate in the event from wherever they are, even if they can't come in to the city, or even if they don't like football.”
Hosting an event of this magnitude is an opportunity for all of us to unite in support of our team, but also to show off our city to new and potential visitors. Whether they’re here in person attending the game or seeing clips on TV or social media, people from across Canada need to see all the great things happening in the city. Of course, we always aim to convince people to Winnipeg and experience it for themselves.
EDW’s Tourism Winnipeg team works hard to bring large conferences and events to the city. For 2023, the team secured multiple high-profile events where we expect a direct spend of more than $38 million. These events include the 2023 World Police & Fire Games and the 2023 International Indigenous Tourism Conference.
