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BLOG POST
Sports tourism stays hot
How hoteliers and holiday rental hosts can capture the surge around this year’s American College Football Playoff National Championship.
If sports tourism has any lingering sceptics, this year’s American College Football Playoff National Championship should put that debate to rest.
Indiana University and the University of Miami, the teams who faced off in the championship game in South Florida, both had fans who played a waiting game in the hopes to see their favourite team in action.
Ticket prices for the game were running at $3,000 or higher, prompting many to delay final travel decisions as they held out for last-minute price drops. But other Hoosier and Hurricane fans planned to travel to the region, even without game tickets.
The result was a spike in last-minute hotel and holiday-rental demand. For lodging operators, this meant a real opportunity to lean into Expedia Group’s promotional tools to capture share from the compset.
A rare moment for South Florida and for American university football
Though South Florida is no stranger to major sporting events – or the fans who travel to them – the American football championship in January was one that even seasoned operators should pay attention to.
In January 2026, the Hurricanes played the Hoosiers at Hard Rock Stadium, a venue Miami calls home. In the modern American College Football Playoff era, no team has ever played a national championship game in its home stadium. As Miami has more than two hundred thousand alumni from around the world, the game was transformed into an once-in-a-generation homecoming.
Indiana’s story added fuel to the fire. A programme long defined by perseverance rather than post-season glory has become American university football’s rags-to-roses story and the Hoosiers’ run has activated what Indiana proudly calls the world’s largest living alumni base. In recent games, IU fans turned Pasadena and Atlanta crimson, filling hotels and short-term rentals along the way. Miami was next.
Travel behaviour is shifting and partners should notice
Airlines had already responded. Delta, American and Frontier added service from Indianapolis to Miami. Flights from Chicago, home to a sizeable Indiana alumni population, remained relatively affordable. Capacity was not necessarily the constraint. Timing was.
As airfare locked in, lodging decisions increasingly came later. Fans were staying flexible, willing to commute from nearby markets to offset ticket costs and stretch a championship weekend into a broader holiday. Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale and other coastal communities saw heightened interest from travellers combining family trips with once-in-a-lifetime sporting events.
One IndyCar Motorsports driver I spoke with shared plans to stay fifty minutes north, in Delray Beach, for precisely that reason: a beach holiday paired with a national championship. A group of Indiana alumni from Chicago and Austin booked flights weeks ago and told me they were monitoring hotel prices daily, waiting for last-minute opportunities.
Partner playbook: tools to capture championship demand
For hoteliers and holiday rental hosts
- Last-minute deals to attract fans staying outside the immediate stadium area.
- Member-only pricing to convert high intent travellers when incremental occupancy matters
- One Key redemptions, fully funded by Expedia Group, to close bookings from value-focused guests.
For hoteliers
- B2B rate plans that surface inventory to travellers booking through financial institutions and loyalty platforms – an often overlooked but meaningful source of demand during major events.
All tools are available via self-service and designed to perform when plans come together at the last minute.
The bigger picture
For partners, this championship was more than a busy weekend. It was a signal.
Sports tourism is not a blip. It is a durable demand driver powered by emotion, loyalty and moments that cannot be replicated. When fans travel for history, they do not just book rooms. They create memories and they remember who made the trip possible.
Congratulations to the partners capturing this demand. And as for Indiana American football, let’s say sports tourism may be here to stay – much like Coach Cignetti’s Hoosiers. Sorry. Could not resist. Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers.
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Brandon Ehrhardt
Vice President of Marketing, Expedia Group
Brandon heads up B2B accommodation marketing at Expedia Group and has played an integral role in scaling our partner programmes, leading strategic initiatives and expanding the use of revenue insights to drive partner success. Brandon resides with his wife and child, a young travel enthusiast, in Chicago, IL.
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