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July 14, 2025
GREEN BAY – Coming hot off the heels of the 2025 NFL Draft, the City of Green Bay recently played host to even more young athletes right across the street from Lambeau Field during this year’s YMCA National Gymnastics Championship and Invitational.
Between June 24-28, Amanda Bodden – youth program director for the Fond du Lac Family YMCA and event director for the national meet – said athletes ranging from six to 20 years old gathered at the Resch Center for a weekend of not only competition, but community as well.
The event, she said, was made possible thanks to three Northeast Wisconsin YMCA organizations.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “This has been a collaboration of three YMCAs – Fond du Lac, Menominee/Marinette and Green Bay all coming together to put on this awesome event.”
With roughly 4,000 visitors – including athletes, coaches, their families and supporters alike – traveling to Green Bay from across the country for the event, Bodden said she also credits the three YMCAs’ collaboration with other area organizations, like Discover Green Bay, for the national meet’s success.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” she said. “We knew the three YMCAs couldn’t do it alone, so we came together, and it’s really cool to see… I don’t know that it would have been possible without the collaboration.”
Nothing is done alone
To kick off the national competition, athletes, coaches, volunteers and supporters gathered at the Resch Center for an opening ceremony parade of the teams featuring a keynote speech by Jordan Chiles – an Olympic gymnast most known for her 2020 silver-medal and 2024 gold-medal performances with the USA women’s gymnastics team.
However, before Chiles took center stage, Nick Meisner – VP of digital marketing and communications with Discover Green Bay – addressed the crowd and said he is grateful the National YMCA organization selected the City of Green and Gold to host the major event.
Though many thanks were given and received throughout the kick off event, above all else, J.J. Raflik – executive director/CEO for the Fond du Lac Family YMCA – said the most appreciation goes to the National YMCA event committee for not only choosing Green Bay as the event’s host city but supporting it throughout the planning process of its national competition as well.
“As [planned and] put this event on, it has been incredibly clear to me how much work that committee of about 10-12 individuals put into putting this [event] on [every year],” he said.
Meisner said the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship has found its host city in Wisconsin previously, but never in Green Bay – that is, until this year.
“We’ve watched this [event] go around the state to [places like] Sheboygan [and Eau Claire], so we’re really excited to have it here in Green Bay,” he said. “This is an event that we’ve been after for a really, really long time, and we thought there’s no better place than Titletown to crown some national champions.”
With the Resch Complex being housed within the city’s Stadium District, Meisner said the event was funded in part by Brown County tax revenue.
“Most events have bid fees,” he said. “We can apply for grants, basically, through the Stadium District – which is funded by Brown County sales tax [revenue] – to cover a portion of bid fees for big events.”
In a joint effort with Discover Green Bay, Meisner said the three YMCA organizations applied for funds from the Stadium District, as well as from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s (WEDC) Opportunity Attraction Fund to help cover the bid fee for this year’s national gymnastics meet.
“The Opportunity [Attraction] Fund is for destinations throughout Wisconsin to apply for [grants to help fund] bid fees for large events,” he said. “They provided $60,000 [for our national gymnastics meet bid].”
And without financial support from the Stadium District and the Opportunity Attraction Fund, Meisner said it wouldn’t be possible to host major events such as this in Green Bay.
“It literally cannot happen without [those funds],” he said. “If a destination can’t come up with the bid fee for the event, it’s not coming [there], and that economic benefit doesn’t come to the community.”
The upfront cost to bid on hosting an event like the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship, Meisner said, is often outweighed by the economic benefits they bring the city and surrounding areas.
“This one in particular, the YMCA National Gymnastics Championships and Invitational, is [expected] to bring anywhere between $3.1 million to $3.3 million to the area,” he said. “So, it’s a good ROI.”
Why Green Bay?
Two years ago, during the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bodden said leadership of the YMCAs of Fond du Lac, Menominee/Marinette and Greater Green Bay started discussing how to bring the competition back to the dairy state.
“At Nationals [in] 2023, the three of us sat down and had a conversation about how we could do it, and that really was the [project’s] starting point,” she said. “The next week, we came home from Cincinnati, we had meetings in Green Bay and it was all in the works from there. So, it’s been two years of planning.”
When asked why the three organizations targeted the home of the Packers as the competition’s next host city, Bodden said “why not Green Bay?”
“The Resch Expo… was made for gymnastics meets,” she said. “Then we have [the Resch Center] venue right next door, [and] we held our graduating senior reception over at Lambeau Field. Having these amazing facilities… then having the hotels and the restaurants all within walking distance – you can’t beat it.”
With 78 YMCA gymnastics teams traveling to Green Bay from 15 different states across the country, Meisner said it’s the local hospitality industry that makes it possible for the city to welcome the anticipated influx of visitors events like this bring.
“The local hospitality industry… those people are the best of the best,” he said. “They do an amazing job of taking care of all of our visitors. We usually welcome about 6.3 million visitors a year to the Greater Green Bay Area, and they take care of all of them, so we appreciate the hospitality industry here.”
Though Green Bay was recently put on a national stage by hosting the 2025 NFL Draft, Meisner said it’s events like the YMCA National Gymnastics Championship that drive continuous tourism in the city and New North region.
“Coming off the draft, that’s one of the biggest national events you can host, obviously,” he said, “but it’s the YMCA nationals; the [USBC Women’s National Bowling Championships]… followed up by the Junior Gold Youth Bowling Championships… that we’re hosting next month; and even the statewide competitions and conferences [that] keep the [city’s] tourism industry moving. Our sales team does a great job of going out and identifying these [event] leads and bringing them here to Green Bay.”
That type of work, Meisner said, requires persistence and confidence – much like what Chiles said is required of gymnastic athletes.
“Over time, I learned that confidence does not mean never being scared,” she said during her keynote speech. “Confidence is deciding to show up anyway. It is trusting that who you are is already enough, [and] being authentic to who you are every single day.”
Being authentically Green Bay and driving additional tourism through hosting local, state and national events is something Meisner said Discover Green Bay does especially well.
“There’s something unique [about] having your event in Green Bay, and it makes it attractive to other event planners who are considering bringing their event here,” he said “In fact, our sales team [travels to places like] Madison… [to meet] with a bunch of event planners in various industries down there [and] bring their events to Green Bay.”
And, much like Chiles’s advice to “never stop showing up” in competition, practice and life, Meisner said he and his team seek to continually market the best of Green Bay – never wasting time to bask in the limelight of a successful event.
“We celebrate getting [an event] here, but we never bask…,” he said. “It’s hard to quantify tourism sometimes, and when we can share these numbers and show how it impacts our community, it’s exciting.”
And though the exact number of spectators and the economic impact the event had on the region hasn’t yet been tallied, Meisner said it’s anticipated to be significant.
