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GREENSBORO — Today, with the start of the ACC women's basketball tournament, the Gate City will again live up to its reputation as Tournament Town.

Over the next three months, Greensboro will host four ACC tournaments, including men's and women's basketball, baseball and women's golf.

It's a first for the city and a rare occurrence for the Greensboro-based conference.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said the league has twice held all of its nonrevenue, spring sports championships in one location — Atlanta in 1997 and Orlando in 2001 — under the heading "Springfest."

"That's something we don't do anymore," Swofford said. "Outside of Springfest, I don't think we have had a situation where one city has hosted four championships in one year."

Organizers said the tournaments represent more than a showcase for baskets, base hits and birdies. The four events will have an economic impact on the city of about $35 million.

Fans will spend money on hotel rooms, food, gas, shopping and visits to local attractions.

But local tourism officials acknowledge that assessing the financial benefits of a tournament can be more difficult to forecast than a convention.

"When you get to sporting events, we can tell you how many people are in the arenas each day, but we don't have the exact breakdown of how many are local and how many are from out of town," said Henri Fourrier, president and CEO of the Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Our preference is to err on the conservative side."

Fourrier projects the upcoming tournaments will break down this way: women's basketball, $7.8 million; men's basketball, $18.8 million; baseball, $8.3 million; and women's golf, $36,000.

The city's Tournament Town tag isn't just about the ACC or basketball, its flagship sport. It covers all the sporting events — everything from cheerleading to martial arts competitions — that officials try to bring here.

Last year, those ranged from the National Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships, which brought nearly 7,000 athletes and their families to N.C. A&T and had an economic impact of $17 million, to the ACC women's golf tournament, which brought about 50 participants to town.

Collectively, the 54 events packed an economic punch of $116.5 million.

That amount does not include money brought in by ongoing events such as the Wyndham Championship golf tournament or competitions at the city's colleges, high schools and churches. Nor does it cover events that did not need the assistance of the Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau or the Greensboro Sports Commission, a clearinghouse for attracting athletic events to the city.

And the numbers don't take into account the media attention that accompanies events such as the ACC men's basketball tournament.

"One of the things that hosting tournaments does is that it gives you TV time," said Florence Gatten, vice chairwoman of the War Memorial Commission, a coliseum advisory group. "You can't pay for that exposure."

Officials said the city has been successful at attracting sporting events because of the array of public and private venues it boasts, from the coliseum to NewBridge Bank Park downtown to the Greensboro Sportsplex on 16th Street.

"The vision that Greensboro has had pays a lot of dividends," said Swofford, who added that the league "would strongly entertain" the opportunity to hold its swimming and diving championships at the $19 million Greensboro Aquatic Center, scheduled to open in 2011. "It would appear that the aquatics center here is (going to be) one of the top ones on the East Coast."

That would make a sixth ACC tournament that the Gate City could host. The league already held its men's golf championship here four times in the mid- to late-1980s.

Greensboro officials began calling the city Tournament Town in 2006, when the coliseum hosted the women's and men's ACC basketball tournaments and the NCAA men's first and second-round hoops games during three successive weeks.

"No one had ever done that," said Matt Brown, the coliseum's managing director. "I think our record speaks pretty well."

In 2007, the city trademarked the Tournament Town tag.

Some contend that when the ACC selects Greensboro for one of its championships, it sends a strong signal to the NCAA to do the same.

Swofford sees it differently.

"I think the NCAA already knows what Greensboro can do," he said. "When the NCAA sees us bringing four of our championships here in one year, that's a good validation for what the NCAA... has experienced itself."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com