By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews — Maryland on the Map, Part 4
Maryland does not have a Plan B.
That is not an accusation. It is an observation about how states tend to think about major sporting events — as things to be preserved rather than ecosystems to be built. The $400 million committed to rebuilding Pimlico was, at its core, a decision to protect something Maryland already had rather than a strategic vision for what Maryland could become.
That instinct is understandable. The Preakness is 154 years old. It is the second leg of the Triple Crown. It is woven into the identity of Baltimore and, to a lesser degree, the state. Losing it — watching it relocate to New Jersey or Kentucky or some developer’s greenfield site in a Sun Belt suburb — would have been a genuine civic wound.
But preservation bets can fail. Horse racing’s structural decline is not a Maryland problem. It is a national one. Attendance at tracks across the country has been falling for decades. The handle — the total amount wagered — has held up better than attendance, partly because of the shift to online and simulcast wagering, but the live racing audience is aging and not being replaced at sufficient scale. Maryland bet $400 million that it can reverse those trends, or at least insulate itself from them, through facility quality and year-round programming.
If that bet underperforms, Maryland needs options. The good news is that it has them — it just has not invested in them seriously.
What Maryland Already Has That It Is Not Using
The state is not starting from nothing. Beyond the Ravens and Orioles, which are economic anchors in their own right, Maryland has several significant sporting assets in various states of development:
The CIAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament relocated to Baltimore in 2022 and has become one of the more remarkable quiet success stories in Maryland sports tourism. The event generated $27.4 million in economic impact in 2025 alone, with cumulative impact from 2022 through 2025 reaching $109 million. It is locked in through at least 2029. It draws thousands of visitors from across the mid-Atlantic and Southeast, benefits minority-owned businesses at a measurable rate, and blends athletic competition with Black cultural heritage in a way that creates genuine civic identity — not just a sporting event, but a week that Baltimore owns. It is already, by some measures, a more reliable annual economic contributor than the Preakness.
The Maryland Cycling Classic, which debuted in 2022 as a UCI ProSeries race and expanded to a three-stage format in 2026, draws approximately 40,000 spectators and generates $9 to $14 million in economic impact per edition. It features Tour de France and Olympic-caliber riders racing through Baltimore and surrounding areas. It is small by international cycling standards but growing, and it has something the Preakness does not — a sport with expanding global television reach and a demographic profile that skews young, affluent, and engaged.
These are not replacements for the Preakness. They are evidence that Maryland can build and sustain major sporting events when it decides to.
The Lacrosse Argument
If Maryland were going to make a deliberate bet on a second signature sporting identity — something that could, over time, rival the Preakness in national recognition — lacrosse is the most logical choice.
Maryland is not one of many states with a strong lacrosse tradition. It is the state with the strongest lacrosse tradition, full stop. Johns Hopkins University won the national championship before most current players were born and remains one of the sport’s foundational programs. The University of Maryland has won national titles on both the men’s and women’s sides. The Naval Academy has produced championship programs. The youth lacrosse infrastructure in Baltimore’s suburbs — the club programs, the tournaments, the pipeline to Division I — is the deepest in the country.
The sport itself is growing. The Premier Lacrosse League, now in its seventh season, has established a touring model that has brought professional lacrosse to markets across the country. Participation numbers at the youth and high school level have increased steadily for two decades. Lacrosse has an international foothold — the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will include lacrosse for the first time since 1908, which means a global television audience will watch the sport for the first time at scale.
What Maryland lacks is a flagship annual event that ties all of this together. The NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship has been held in Maryland before — the state has the venues, the fan base, and the logistical infrastructure to host it. A permanent home for the championship at Maryland Stadium in College Park, branded around Maryland’s identity as the sport’s spiritual capital, would be a relatively inexpensive investment with significant long-term tourism and media potential.
A standalone “Maryland Lacrosse Classic” — an annual all-star or showcase event featuring the Premier Lacrosse League and college programs, held on a signature weekend in late spring — could develop into exactly the kind of event that builds generational tradition. It would not happen overnight. Neither did the Masters.
The Cycling Opportunity
The Maryland Cycling Classic’s expansion to three stages in 2026 is the moment to think bigger about what this race could become.
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift proved that a well-produced, properly invested women’s road cycling race can generate enormous international attention and television reach — viewership in the tens of millions across Europe and growing audiences in the United States. The men’s peloton already generates global reach for any race that achieves WorldTour status.
Maryland has the terrain for a genuinely challenging race. Western Maryland’s Appalachian ridges — particularly the climbs around Cumberland, the Hwy 135 corridor near Bloomington, and Coxey Brown Road with its 10 percent average gradient — are not the Alps, but they are difficult enough to produce real racing. Frederick County’s Catoctin Mountain area, specifically Gambrill Park Road and Hamburg Road, offers sustained climbing that would test professional riders and create the kind of summit moments that generate broadcast highlights.
A dedicated queen stage — a mountain stage based in western Maryland that accumulates 4,000 to 6,000 feet of climbing over 90 to 120 miles — would give the Maryland Cycling Classic a signature set piece. It would draw international cycling media to a part of the state that rarely gets national coverage. It would drive hotel stays in Cumberland, Frederick, and the surrounding area in a shoulder tourism season when those markets need them.
The investment required is modest relative to Pimlico: road improvements on the race route, summit infrastructure for spectators and broadcast equipment, and the UCI sanctioning fees associated with WorldTour-level racing. If Maryland’s Sports Commission directed even a fraction of its major events grant funding toward accelerating the Cycling Classic’s growth, the return on that investment would be measurable within three to five years.
The Sailing Angle
Annapolis calls itself America’s Sailing Capital, and for once, the marketing matches the reality.
The Naval Academy has produced Olympic sailors and America’s Cup competitors for generations. The Annapolis waterfront hosts the United States Sailboat Show and the United States Powerboat Show each fall, drawing tens of thousands of boating enthusiasts from across the region. The Chesapeake Bay is one of the premier sailing venues in the eastern United States.
What Annapolis does not have is a marquee competitive sailing event with national television reach — the kind of event that puts the city’s name in front of audiences who do not already know it as a sailing destination.
The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Newport Bermuda Race demonstrate that offshore sailing can generate significant media attention when properly organized and promoted. An Annapolis-to-somewhere offshore race, or a match racing series on the Chesapeake Bay modeled on the format that made sailing popular in markets like San Francisco and Newport, Rhode Island, could position Maryland as a legitimate player in competitive sailing’s expanding media landscape.
This is a longer investment horizon than lacrosse or cycling. The sailing audience, while affluent and engaged, is smaller. But the economic model — premium hospitality, high-spending visitors, waterfront venue — mirrors Augusta National more closely than any other event Maryland could realistically build. Low attendance, high value, strong brand identity.
What Maryland Should Actually Do
The honest answer is that Maryland should not choose one of these. It should pursue all of them at different investment levels simultaneously, using the Sports Commission’s grant infrastructure that already exists.
- The CIAA Tournament needs continued support and deeper integration into Baltimore’s cultural calendar.
- The Cycling Classic needs a modest capital push to reach the next level of international sanctioning.
- A lacrosse flagship event needs a champion inside state government willing to make the case for it.
- And Annapolis sailing needs a private-sector anchor — a title sponsor willing to invest in a race series before the state spends anything significant.
None of this replaces the Preakness if the Preakness succeeds. And if the Preakness succeeds — if the rebuilt Pimlico draws year-round crowds, if the Oak View Group delivers on its promises, if a Triple Crown contender arrives in 2027 to christen the new facility — Maryland will have made a good bet.
But good governance does not make only one bet. Maryland has the assets to be more than a one-event state, and the cost of developing those assets is small compared to what it just spent on a racetrack.
The Masters did not make Georgia a sporting destination. Augusta National made Augusta a sporting destination. The difference matters. Maryland needs institutions, events, and identities that belong to it specifically — not just events it is paying to keep.
Maryland on the Map is an ongoing MDBayNews series on the state’s sporting economy and public investment in major events.
Sources: Maryland Stadium Authority; Maryland Sports Commission; CIAA Tournament Baltimore economic impact reports (2022–2025); Maryland Cycling Classic organizers/UCI; MTROA; Premier Lacrosse League public statements; NCAA lacrosse championship hosting history; U.S. Sailing Association; Annapolis and Anne Arundel County tourism data; Dennis Coates, UMBC; Maryland Department of Commerce Major Events Fund documentation.
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