2022 World Games recruits star power to promote event

The 2022 World Games are counting on some star power to help promote the event coming to the Birmingham-Hoover metro area next year, the chairman of the Alabama Sports Council told the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce on May 20.

Organizers of the 2022 World Games have named soccer star Catherine Reddick Whitehill, Olympic gold medal bobsledder Vonetta Flowers, Iraq War veteran and “Dancing with the Stars” competitor Noah Galloway, NBA all-star Charles Barkley and country music legend Randy Owen as honorary co-chairs of the games, Nick Sellers said at the Hoover chamber’s monthly luncheon at the Hoover Country Club.

Owen is helping write a theme song for the games and plans to help bring in other popular music artists to perform it, Sellers said.

The 2022 World Games, scheduled for July 7-17, 2022, will feature 3,600 athletes from more than 100 countries who will compete in 34 sports in 10 venues across the Birmingham-Hoover metro area, including softball at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, Sellers said.

Some of the sports are more common sports such as softball, gymnastics and lacrosse, but there is a wide variety of other competitions, including canoeing, fistball, flag football, Korfball, racquetball, squash, various martial arts, archery, billiards, bowling, tug of war, water skiing, lifesaving, drone racing and orienteering.

“It’s the new generation of international sports,” Sellers said. “It’s sort of like the X Games of the Olympics.”

Many of the games will be at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, but other venues will include Protective Stadium, the Birmingham Crossplex, Legion Field, Birmingham-Southern College, John Carroll Catholic High School, Sloss Furnaces, Avondale Park, Boutwell Auditorium, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, Oak Mountain State Park and Barber Motorsports Park.

The World Games, which are conducted in partnership with the International Olympic Committee, are expected to draw 500,000 people and have an economic impact of $256 million, Sellers said.

While many fans will come from the Southeast, thousands of international visitors are expected, and the games will be broadcast globally, he said.

“This is our chance to shine on an international stage,” Sellers said.

He described it as the biggest international sporting event in the history of Alabama and the largest in the Southeast since the 1996 Olympics. It’s also the first time the World Games have been on U.S. soil since the first World Games was held in California in 1981.

“To put your community in an international setting — it’s huge,” Sellers said.

When many people across the globe think of Birmingham and Alabama, they think of the state’s racial past, but this will give the metro area a chance for people to see the “beautiful, diverse medical capital of the South — a community that’s finally getting comfortable in our skin and who we are,” Sellers said.

For years, Birmingham chased Atlanta and other larger cities, but Birmingham is beginning to understand the area has a beauty of its own, he said. When people see the beautiful suburbs, Regions Field in downtown Birmingham and the new colorful lights underneath Interstate 59/20, they can see “there’s some magic happening again” in the Magic City, Sellers said.

The World Games organizers also are promoting this as one of the first major sporting events coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they hope to capitalize on the momentum people are feeling as health conditions improve, Sellers said.

“People are clamoring to get back together,” he said. “We just feel like this is going to be a big moment.”

Organizers also are trying to send a message of inclusiveness in the midst of the social justice movement, he said.

The inclusion of wheelchair rugby makes this the first major athletic event that includes people with and without disabilities on the same official program, Sellers said.

Also, organizers of the 2022 World Games petitioned the International Olympic Committee and the International World Games Association to allow the Iroquois Native American tribe to enter its accomplished lacrosse team into the games even though the tribe was not considered a sovereign nation, Sellers said.

The 2022 World Games organizing committee also has committed to spend at least 35% of its $10 million to $15 million budget with businesses owned by women and minorities, Sellers said.

Kathy Boswell, the vice president of community engagement for the 2022 World Games, told the chamber crowd that organizers of the games also will be working with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Birmingham-Southern College to feed 4,600 athletes and officials and plan to to distribute any unused food to community kitchens. Organizers also will be taking steps to reduce waste, she said.

To pull the games off, organizers will need 2,500 volunteers and will be launching a volunteer drive later, Boswell said.

She encouraged the Birmingham-Hoover community to pull together to make the games a success. “We’ve got one chance to get this right,” Boswell said.

For more information about the 2022 World Games, go to twg2022.com.