Utah Sports Commission CEO Jeff Robbins said that he is "disappointed but not discouraged" by the decision of Mountain Dew and NBC's Alli Sports to change the format of the Dew Tour and eliminate the stop in Utah, according to Amy Donaldson of the DESERET NEWS. The summer stop, held in September and sponsored by Toyota, "brought in $10-12 million each year, while the winter stop, held at Snowbasin, brought in about $6 million." Robbins said, "The aggregate is that we're losing about $75-80 million in economic impact and almost the same in media exposure" (DESERET NEWS, 4/17). In Salt Lake City, Bill Oram notes the "earliest the Dew Tour could return to Utah is 2014." Dew Tour GM Chris Prybylo said yesterday, "A lot has changed since we started the tour. So we were looking to create some bigger events, some more premium events versus the tour model." He added, "It certainly wasn’t due to the lack of success of the (Utah) events at all. It was more just that the Utah structure didn’t fit at this time" (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 4/17). Also in Salt Lake City, Kurt Kragthorpe writes while there seemingly was "nothing more the Sports Commission could have done to keep the Dew Tour, this is a setback." While many locals "had never heard of a lot of those sports until the dirt started piling up inside and outside of EnergySolutions Arena, this stuff worked here." Robbins and his staff "continually are looking for what’s next in sports, and they’ve managed to stay ahead of the curve." Kragthorpe: "Undoubtedly, they will find replacements, and it’s likely that the Dew Tour itself would recognize what it’s missing and return to Utah in 2014." Losing the Dew Tour "will undo a lot of the good that the Sports Commission has done around here." That is "seemingly no fault of its own, just a function of NBC’s decision and the vagaries of dealing with the action sports world" (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 4/17).
