Win or lose, the Colorado Springs Switchbacks’ bid to capture their first-ever United Soccer League championship will be a victory economically and image-wise for the city, downtown and Weidner Field, business and civic leaders predict.

The match against visiting Rhode Island FC kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday before a sold-out crowd of 8,000 fans at Weidner Field, the 3-year-old, outdoor, multiuse stadium southwest of Cimarron and Sahwatch streets on downtown’s southwest side, which serves as the Switchbacks’ home.

For those who can’t be there, some downtown bars and restaurants will hold watch parties and open early as they prepare for what they hope will be larger-than-normal crowds to cheer on the team.

Colorado Springs residents who watch on TV, meanwhile, won’t be alone.

The Switchbacks-Rhode Island match will be telecast live to a national audience by CBS — not the secondary CBS Sports channel found on some cable systems and streaming platforms, but the same CBS network where the Denver Broncos often play on Sunday afternoons. And don’t be surprised if, like during Bronco games, CBS offers up occasional camera shots of a snow-covered Pikes Peak and Colorado Springs’ mountain backdrop.

An event that brings thousands of people downtown to hopefully eat at restaurants and shop at stores, while it also puts a national spotlight on the community, is a boon for the city, said Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce & EDC.

“This Switchbacks game on Saturday and all the games up to this are putting us on a national map,” she said. “Anytime you can receive national media attention for your community in a positive way, you’re telling your story.”

From a Chamber & EDC perspective, that story is that Colorado Springs is one of the nation’s best places to live — U.S. News & World Report ranked it No. 3 this year in its annual report on the nation’s top cities — and, for employers, a great community in which to do business and create jobs.

“It’s not only great for those of us who call ourselves residents of Colorado Springs, but reputationally and branding, it does give us the positive reputation we’re looking for as a city to live, work and play,” Reeder Kleymeyer said of CBS’ national telecast of the game. “And it’s important to be thought of in those conversations, when people (employers) are making business site decisions or looking to locate to a region as an individual or family. So this is positive all the way around.”

The Switchbacks championship game isn’t the only big event ever held in downtown, of course.

Weidner Field — which seats more people for concerts because fans can sit on the field — played host July 20 to a packed show by pop/rock stars the Jonas Brothers, while country singer Jason Aldean reportedly drew more than 20,000 concert-goers the night before.

Parades and Olympic-themed festivals — the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee is based in the Springs — also have drawn thousands.

Still, Saturday’s game will bring added exposure to downtown, while it helps attract residents who might not have been to Colorado Springs’ city center in years and are unaware of its recent influx of apartment projects, restaurants and amenities, said Carrie Simison, marketing and communications director for the Downtown Partnership, the area’s leading advocacy group.

“People, a lot of times, maybe haven’t been downtown since before the pandemic, so they don’t really remember, or understand or know how vibrant it is,” she said. “Our storefronts are full. We have the largest concentration of independent restaurants in all of southern Colorado. If you haven’t been down here in years, and all of sudden, you’re like, ‘oh my gosh, look at all these apartment buildings,’ downtown is a different place than it was even just a couple years ago.

“If people are coming down here to see the Switchbacks and this championship game and it’s been a while, they’re going to remember and realize how unique downtown is to this city,” Simison said.

Of places where visitors might go if they come downtown, Jack Quinn’s Irish Pub and Restaurant, 21 S. Tejon St., will open two hours early at 9 a.m. Saturday for a Switchbacks watch party featuring its regular and brunch menus and beverages, said Meredith Klube, managing partner/business partner. A large TV will be set up in a back room to go with two TVs at the bar.

“We really don’t know want to expect,” Klube said. “It could be 10 people, it could be 50 to 100 people. But we’ll be ready for either.”

Jack Quinn’s is one of several members of the Switchbacks FC Business Alliance; the partners in the alliance receive a fan zone booth, group outings and networking events at Weidner Field.

When it comes to watch parties, Jack Quinn’s typically has four a season. But those are for when the Switchbacks are on the road and there’s no other way to see the team, Klube said. Normally, home games aren’t put on the TVs at the bar and restaurant, since fans are a few blocks away watching at Weidner Field.

“For this game,” Klube said, “it was actually one of the Switchbacks’ fan-based folks that gave me a call and said, ‘the game is almost sold out, there might be some folks that really want to watch the game and enjoy some pub atmosphere and food,’ and asked if we’d be willing to open. I thought, that’s a great idea.”

Atomic Cowboy, part of a hub of restaurants and bars in the redeveloped Trolley Building block at 528 S. Tejon St. and another member of the Switchbacks FC Business Alliance, has seen reciprocal benefits from being just two blocks away from Weidner Field.

Bar manager Zachery Moorman said Switchbacks fans regularly fill up the upstairs bar area during game days. The attendance boosts from the stadium are welcomed, especially during the slower pre-Thanksgiving weeks of the fall.

“This is a whole month more of games than they played last year,” Moorman said. “Every weekend they are here is a benefit.”

Dad’s Donuts opened its storefront location at 29 E. Moreno Ave. in June, two blocks from the stadium. Co-founder James Anderson said the breakfast shop chose to open in south downtown, in part, because of the traffic boosts from Weidner Field.

“Before games there’s a rush,” Anderson said. “Now we’re staying open a little later and we’ve enjoyed having that bump, too.”

The breakfast spot is situated well for crowds heading to the stadium for the 10 a.m. Saturday; Anderson said the shop planned to have 20% more donuts available than on a normal Saturday morning.

The actual economic impact of Saturday’s game for places such as Dad’s, Atomic Cowboy and Jack Quinn’s, however, is difficult to forecast, said Austin Wilson-Bradley, the Downtown Partnership’s economic development director. Still, there’s no doubt businesses should see activity, based on the track record of past Switchbacks games.

“The surrounding areas, in particular over at the Trolley block, whenever the Switchbacks are playing, the restaurants over there report that they have more customers in attendance than just your typical night,” Wilson-Bradley said. “So we’re certainly expecting an impact to restaurants and bars for that reason.”

Downtown hotels also should expect to pick up room nights as fans for both the Switchbacks and Rhode Island descend on the area, he said.

“It’s kind of hard to forecast or even put a specific dollar figure on what that impact is, but certainly, anytime you’re bringing an extra 8,000 bodies-plus into downtown for an event like that, you’re going to have an effect on bars, restaurants and hotels.”

Saturday’s game also puts a focus on Weidner Field, which opened in April 2021 as one of the state-funded City for Champions projects, said Laura Neumann, a consultant with Weidner Apartment Homes of suburban Seattle for the past seven years and a mayoral chief of staff when the City for Champions initiative was proposed more than a decade ago. Weidner Apartment Homes, one of the nation’s largest multifamily companies and whose owner Dean Weidner grew up in the Springs, along with the Ragain family that owns the Switchbacks, paid for roughly two-thirds of the Weidner Field cost, according to previous Gazette stories.

Weidner Field and the other City for Champions projects — the downtown U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, the Ed Robson Arena on the campus of Colorado College, the William J. Hybl Sports Medicine and Performance Center at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and the new Air Force Academy visitor center scheduled to open in 2025 — were intended to boost Colorado Springs tourism. They were launched in 2013 by city officials, business people and civic leaders.

In the case of Weidner Field, it was designed to host a variety of sports, as well as concerts and other events, while its indoor club spaces are used for meetings, banquets, corporate events and the like. It’s a far cry from a smaller, 5,000-seat venue where the Switchbacks previously played, southeast of Powers Boulevard and Barnes Road on the Springs’ northeast side.

“It was originally part of the vision of City for Champions, now over 10 years ago, to have this magnet downtown that draws people in,” Neumann said. “Weidner Field is this magnet that brings people together for all sorts of events — concerts, athletic activities, corporate events at Weidner. … It’s serving the purpose it was intended.”

Likewise, Switchbacks games, including Saturday’s championship, add to the city’s overall sports economy, which includes the Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the Olympic & Paralympic Museum, more than 20 Olympic-themed national governing bodies, an Olympic & Paralympic Training Center and sports at Colorado College and the Air Force Academy.

“Although I might be considered biased, I think it’s very significant in that there’s a large portion of our economy that’s based on the sports economy,” Neumann said. “We branded ourselves Olympic City USA. Even the sculpture that we placed at Weidner Field … it was to identify the impact that sports has in the community on building culture within the community and … bringing people together.