The Triple Crown World Series will bring hundreds of youth baseball players and their families to the Roaring Fork Valley this week for tournaments at several venues between Aspen and Glenwood Springs. The program also has a tourism angle: It’s marketed as a “stay to play” event that requires most participants to book hotel rooms to compete.
More than 30 teams are registered to compete across multiple divisions, split into different age groups for players who are 10 to 14 years old. About a third of the teams hail from Colorado; the rest come from states like Texas, Oklahoma and California.
Teams that live within 80 miles of the tournament are exempt from the lodging requirement. But all out-of-town groups must use a Triple Crown portal to secure their rooms or condo-style accommodations. Those who’d rather camp or use a third-party site like AirBnB face a $1,000 surcharge to their registration fee.
In Snowmass Village alone, participants are projected to account for more than 970 room nights during this year’s tournament. (Room nights are calculated by multiplying the number of rooms booked by the number of nights.) Snowmass Tourism PR Manager Sara Stookey Sanchez provided the visitation data, which also shows more than 900 room nights booked in Snowmass during the 2022 and 2023 tournaments.
And that’s just in Snowmass Village, which hosts opening ceremonies and several games throughout the week. The town is one of several community partners, along with the city of Aspen, the city of Glenwood Springs, and the Crown Mountain Parks and Recreation District; the Hanging Lake Adventure Co-Op and Colorado Adventure Guides also collaborate with Triple Crown.
The tournament begins on Tuesday with a skills competition at Crown Mountain Park in El Jebel, followed by opening ceremonies near The Collective in Snowmass Base Village. The festivities include a guest speaker from the Positive Coaching Alliance of Colorado at 2:45 p.m. and the annual “Parade of Teams” at 3:45 p.m.
Games run Wednesday through Sunday, at diamonds in Aspen, Snowmass Village, Basalt, El Jebel and Glenwood Springs.
