THATCHER — The state’s newest authority focusing on six southern counties held its regular monthly meeting in Graham County on Thursday.
The Southern Arizona Sports Film and Tourism Authority is moving forward with plans to service all three economic sectors in Graham, Greenlee, Cochise, Pima, Pinal and Santa Cruz counties.
“I think we’re in a good place of building a strong base,” said Blake Eager, the Authority’s executive director. “I think you heard in the meeting today (that) we’ve got be able to hit the ground running on a couple of events that are large events in our counties.”
Those events include bringing horse racing back to the six counties through an agreement with Rillito Downs, and conducting Spring Training baseball games in Tucson in 2024 between Major League Baseball clubs and Mexican League teams. Eager said there’s also the possibility of a Japanese club or two joining in later years
In January, the Authority’s board voted to spend $50,000 on a sponsorship of the Arizona Bowl college football game in Tucson.
However, there remains one nagging issue — the Authority still has no money.
When the state Legislature created the Authority, it authorized funding of $750,000 from the general fund. That money was disbursed to the Arizona Office of Tourism and still has not been transferred to the Authority.
Eager said he’s hopeful those funds will hit Authority bank accounts in the next week or two.
Another issue discussed was supporting development of film and television soundstages in the southern Arizona, one of which has been proposed by Carpe and Zen Productions, the film production company based in Graham County that sponsors the Gila Valley Film Festival each April.
