City, restaurants, businesses preparing for NCAA Hattiesburg Regional
· Yahoo Sports
For the second year in a row, the city of Hattiesburg is hosting an NCAA baseball regional.
Southern Miss baseball won 44 games this season, earning the No. 9 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament bracket and the opportunity to host a regional from May 29-June 1. As the start of the regional draws near, the excitement in the city is growing.
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Lining the streets of Downtown Hattiesburg are signs that read "Southern Miss vs. All Y'all." You won't make it far driving down 4th Street without seeing Southern Miss flags flown by residents and businesses alike. The city's support for the Golden Eagles is year-round, but it amplifies this time of year.
"The electricity is just different," longtime Hattiesburg resident and owner of 4th Street Bar Slade White said. "I'm talking about when you can feel the energy around here, the hype, the buzz. Even your normal baseball fans, and I'm not knocking them, that aren't here day in and day out, come and the town just gets electric in general."
Fourth Street Bar is less than a mile down the road from Pete Taylor Park and is hard to miss because of the huge baseball labeled "Baseburg" that sits on its roof. Inside, Southern Miss jerseys, signs and newspaper clippings hang on the walls. It has 15 TVs, and all of them will be showing the games.
The bar will be busy with the influx of fans in town and White is preparing by making sure he staffed, ordering extra food and drinks and buying new TVs.
"I'm having to buy two more TVs, of course," White said. "Last year, right before the tournament, I had a TV go out behind my bar. I came in yesterday to work and the TV is out, so I gotta go buy new TVs."
He is also smoking a pork butt and making game day hot dogs, which isn't something he does offers often and like many of the bars and restaurants in town, 4th Street Bar will have drink specials. Ahead of the Golden Eagles' 1 p.m. game on May 29, White is opening the bar at 10:30 a.m., 30 minutes earlier than usual to allow fans time to stop by before heading to the ballpark.
How much do Southern Miss tickets cost?
"Even if they don't have tickets, you know it's a tough ticket to find this weekend, people in general want to get out and get in the buzz of things," White said."
All session tickets for the regional are selling for around $285 while single game ticket prices range from $100 to $115. For many of the games, only 1% of tickets are left, according to StubHub.
Also located down the road from Southern Miss' ballpark is Strick's Barbecue, a Hattiesburg staple since 1980. Strick's is anticipating three or four times the amount of sales it gets on a normal game day.
"We're planning and keeping things prepped up," co-owner Carrington Strickland said. "Making sure we have plenty of staff, plenty of meats and sides on hand."
Stricks' is a popular spot for students during the school year, and once the school year is over, business often dies down. The Hattiesburg Regional is one of the main things Strickland looks forward to during the summer.
"Normally summertime is slow for us when Southern Miss lets out of school," Strickland said. "These (regionals) are great. They kind of help us generate some business the summertime and the offseason."
Most businesses are waiting for the arrival of fans to see an increase in business, but Campus Book Mart, a local store that sells Southern Miss apparel, is already seeing the benefits of the Golden Eagles' successful season.
"When Southern Miss won the (Sun Belt) championship, that was a big deal," Campus Book Mart employee Nolan Smith said. "We posted for our regional shirts and I came in the next day and it was already at 37 orders. It was Memorial Day and we had people in here all day long. So, I'm excited for this weekend."
It's hard to gauge just how many people will spill into Hattiesburg over the next week, but many of the hotels in the area are already out of rooms. Fans of the three teams in the regional, Virginia, Jacksonville State and Little Rock, are expected to be in town as well.
"Traffic doesn't let up," Smith said. "Of course, we're off Hardy Street so it's busy anyway. But we'll get all the more of it. It's at least an exciting traffic."
Last year when Hattiesburg hosted a regional, there was more than $4 million in direct spending over the weekend, with an economic impact of $6-7 million.
Where does Hattiesburg rank among regional sites?
In terms of population, Hattiesburg (48,802) is the third smallest of the 16 NCAA Regional host cities, larger than only Morgantown, West Virginia (30,293) and Starkville (25,754), home of Mississippi State. This year's Hattiesburg Regional offers another chance for the town to showcase itself.
But the city's population does not reflect the popularity in baseball-obsessed Hub City. USM is 12th in the country in average attendance and is sixth among the 16 host cities, averaging 5,207 attendees per game. Southern Miss is No. 3 in the country in percent capacity, averaging 121.1% capacity per game.
"You see a lot of businesses doing specials, putting their signs out in the medians," Strickland said. "You see the city out and about, cleaning the streets and freshening things up. I hate that it takes a regional to do that, but we'll take it when we can get it. So yeah, it's a great thing for us."
Southern Miss baseball kicks of the regional against Little Rock on May 29 at 1 p.m. The game will broadcast on ESPN+. It will be difficult to find a place in town that isn't ready for it.
"I know enough other restaurant owners and we're all friends," White said. "To me it's not a competitive thing with other restaurants, because I look at it as we're Hattiesburg first and foremost and we need to put on a good show. We need to make everybody proud and make sure that the people who come here leave with a good taste in their mouths."
Davis Wilson covers Hattiesburg news and sports for the Hattiesburg American and the Clarion Ledger.
This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Hattiesburg MS prepares for NCAA baseball regional