New Indoor Track Facility a Boost for Reno-Tahoe Tourism

Teams and coaches gathered in the stands and alongside the edges of the banked track, chugging energy drinks and chewing on energy bars as athletes from all around the Western United States vaulted, jumped, threw and sprinted over a three-day period.

The scene for the Silver State Invitational is what the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority envisions happening time and again in the future, having opened its new indoor track-and-field facility on December 5 with a gala evening.

“We have the opportunity now to bid on national championships, conference championships — the list goes on and on,” said Shelli Fine, director of sports development. “We’re exposing the destination to a whole new set of athletes, so we’re really excited about that.”

The indoor track is located in one of the halls of the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. A study in 2021 commissioned by the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority suggested indoor track competitions could bring up to 24,000 room nights in year one and up to 50,000 room nights by year two.

“I have a world-class venue now that I can talk about,” said Fine, who received a special recognition during the gala for her work with the bureau and in bringing the track to life. “Any time a destination invests this type of money into facilities, other people stand up and take notice that they’re truly serious about the sports business. And we’ve been serious about the sports business for a long time.”

The Mondo-manufactured indoor track is one of four such facilities on the West Coast, joining venues in Albuquerque, Seattle and Spokane. Its ability to be assembled and disassembled in a few days without screws or bolts, along with the chance to immediately bring in events with substantial economic impact, was attractive to the Reno-Sparks CVB.

“We have been trying to identify something that was truly a game changer for our industry and our market,” said Mike Larragueta, president and chief executive officer of the RSCVA. “The season for indoor track happens to align with our shoulder season in terms of tourism. It’s portable so we can take it down when conventions are here and it fits into our seasonality of when we can drive tourism to the region in a time period of the year when we need it.”

Packed Schedule Already Booked

The track will be the home for the University of Nevada indoor program and host multiple collegiate events this season, in addition to the Reno Tahoe Athletics Winter Track & Field Festival from December 14–15 and USATF Pacific Holiday Invitational from December 27–29, one of three USATF Pacific Region events in Reno this season.

“It is the best of both worlds,” said John Mansoor, executive director of the Pacific Region of USA Track & Field. “It’s going to give huge opportunities to a whole bunch of new athletes. They’re going to come up here. They’re going to have fun. The families are going to enjoy Reno. And it’s going to raise the level of the sport considerably.”

The Holiday Invitational will attract around 1,600 competitors and their families to Reno, a city that holds a special meaning for Mansoor; his first USA Track & Field annual convention was in Reno in 1981. Reno did at one point have an indoor track at the Livestock Events Center; Mansoor wore cowboys boots at the ribbon-cutting to remind him of the old site. It was there in the mid-’90s that athletes such as Michael Johnson set then-world records at the Reno Games.

“Not only now with this new facility do we have a track that can host major meets but this is also a facility that can host meets with hundreds or thousands of kids and high school kids and youths,” Mansoor said. “It’s a world-class track that’s extremely fast combined with altitude for the sprints and jumps, which is going to make it a premier destination.”

The track itself is a 12-degree banked oval with six running lanes. Within the oval are eight 48-inch sprint lanes with crash pads and infield space for high jump, pole vault, long jump and triple jump areas. Behind the bleachers are eight lanes of warm-up areas for track athletes plus a shot put and weight throw area with protective jersey barriers and a netting system.

“Oftentimes a facility isn’t large enough to accommodate warmup areas,” said Micah Walters, a western region and segment manager for Mondo USA. “Here, you have eight lanes of warmup, which for a track coach is everything because they can get athletes warmed up to run fast times. It’s going to make a tremendous difference.”

The Reno Tahoe track also has a slightly smaller radius of 19 degrees compared to other indoor venues, which leads to enough banking in the turns for sprinters to carry speed through each lap but without too much banking for distance runners.

High Hopes for Future Events

“What you have here in Reno Tahoe is that nice middle ground,” Walter said.

The track is World Athletics-certified with lanes in the interchanging silver and deep blue colors of the Nevada Wolf Pack. When disassembled, the track can be stored elsewhere in the convention center. The total cost of the track, expandable bleachers up to 1,200 fans and related event equipment is $5 million.

“This is one of the best facilities in the world,” said Ato Bolden, the four-time Olympic medalist for Trinidad and Tobago and emcee for the opening gala. “There aren’t that many facilities that you can point to, particularly in this part of the world and say, this facility could potentially host a world indoors.”

Boldon, a four-time Olympian, now works as a track-and-field analyst for NBC Sports and can envision a time where he’ll be back in Reno: “In the way that Boston welcomes the world every indoor season and the Millrose Games welcomes the world every season (in New York), I could very easily see coming back here in the future for something like that.”