Visit McKinney board members received a recap Wednesday of the December NCAA Division II Football Championship held in McKinney and an update on the organization’s use of the PlayEasy booking platform and hotel performance metrics.

The presentation, delivered by Alicia Holmberg of the Visit McKinney finance committee, summarized logistics and economic indicators tied to the Dec. 21 game, which pairs a longstanding partnership between McKinney Independent School District (MISD), the city and Visit McKinney. “So as you can see it’s a partnership with MISD, the city of McKinney, visit McKinney, and, there’s a group of volunteers that also assist with the teams that come in,” Holmberg said during the meeting.

Holmberg told the board that Ferris State University beat Valdosta State, 49-14, in the championship game. She said Ferris State’s travel footprint produced 392 room nights in the region, while Visit McKinney-tracked room nights for Valdosta State at the Sheraton totaled 219; alumni and other blocks generated additional stays. Holmberg said overall occupancy for the event period remained strong for late December, and that the city’s STR (Smith Travel Research) numbers showed solid performance despite variation tied to which teams reach the game and the timing around the holidays.

Board members also heard a first-year report on PlayEasy, a digital event and sports-industry lead-generation and booking tool Visit McKinney used for the championship. Holmberg said staff built an event microsite and that PlayEasy produced eight converted room nights across four hotels during this deployment. “We tried to push this out as it was pretty new when we got it…we were excited to even see that 8 rooms converted from this,” Holmberg said.

Marketing and promotions were also discussed. Holmberg and Beth Shumate reported that Visit McKinney ran boosted social posts in Michigan and Georgia—markets tied to the participating teams—which generated meaningful traffic to the NCAA landing page and ticket links. Holmberg said fan-fest activity at Tufts Brewery produced record sales compared with prior years’ beer-only sales; she attributed the increase to expanded food offerings and the venue’s mixed indoor/outdoor layout.

Holmberg explained context for room-night variation year to year: last year’s sellout figure of about 12,000 attendees reflected more regional and drivable teams, while this year’s teams (from Michigan and Georgia) and the Dec. 21 game date likely constrained attendance and travel.

The board did not take a formal action on the NCAA presentation; staff said they will continue to refine PlayEasy usage and targeted boosted-post strategies for future events.

Questions raised by board members centered on conversion tracking and whether targeted social boosts could be scaled; Holmberg said staff will use the PlayEasy back end to track click-throughs, geographic origin of traffic, and actual bookings to improve future promotions.