(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] Major League Baseball has big plans to expand their fan base in Europe.

And in June, they brought America's national past time to a city where European football is king.

In the house of West Ham in this city of London, one of the oldest rivalries in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs took to the pitch with a global audience.

When the Cardinals and Cubs play each other, fans from both cities will travel to watch them play.

But if you thought it was because these two cities, St. Louis and Chicago, were in close proximity to each other, you'd be wrong.

(bright upbeat music) - Experiencing the London Series, Cardinals and Cubs, and we are truly about the Cardinals.

- I'm a lifelong Cubs fan, this is the only thing that got me here, in London, was the Cubs game.

- No, my first ever time ever, let's go.

- We really saw the London 2023 Cubs cards competition as an opportunity.

- [Anne-Marie] This wasn't just an opportunity for the world to get to know our Birds on the bat, but for St. Louis, our city and our region, it was a chance for the world to get to know us.

Organized by Greater St. Louis Inc, Explore St. Louis and the World Trade Center, a delegation of St. Louis business and civic leaders travel to the U.K. pitching global business investments in St. Louis, highlighting our region's leadership in ag tech and participating in discussions on the power professional sports have on the communities they call home.

- For better or worse, nothing unites people like sports.

- And I think you'll be surprised of representation of the Cardinal fans out there who traveled here to London.

How many people did you have to talk to in the airport?

(man laughs) - [Anne-Marie] This series brought out big name fans and big time talent and it also brought in money.

The economic impact data of the 2023 London Series has not been released but the expectations are high.

The last series between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in 2019 generated a $62 million boost to the U.K. economy and repeat numbers are expected.

Fans traveled from across the globe and over two days, more than 110,000 people flocked to Stratford, a town in East London where 20 years ago, an event like this, in a stadium like this, seemed farfetched.

(crowd applauding) (soft upbeat music) London Stadium is an Olympic legacy.

This East London neighborhood won the bid for the 2012 Olympic Village and Stadiums in 2005.

The site wasn't picked for what it was, it was picked for what it could be, its potential, something it hadn't reached in decades.

(soft upbeat music) - Now if I took you back 15 years, this was an industrial area.

Some of the factories had fallen into disuse and the rivers were full of rubbish, tires, fridges, all that sort of thing.

It was a mosaic of disused land, partially used land, factories that had crumbled away, other factories that were still existing but because it had been used for industry for so long, there was acid in the ground, there was diesel and it was an area that you simply did not visit unless you worked here.

You might get be on the bus going through but you wouldn't wanna get off.

- [Anne-Marie] Back in the day, the East end was an important industrialized part of London with a variety of manufacturers running their businesses there.

There was plenty of work for low and semi-skilled workers but as we've seen in many cities, de-industrialization left Stratford and East London with massive unemployment and minimal investment.

Between 1951 and 1975, 40,000 jobs were lost in the borough of Newham and unemployment reached 20%.

- Totally run down one of the poorest boroughs in the U.K., let alone in London.

Saying that these are still old in their own, aren't they?

You know?

- Yeah.

- They're not empty.

- [Anne-Marie] This is Paul Charters.

He grew up in the East End neighborhood of Hackney.

He also owns Copper Street Cafe.

It's in a new development just across the canal from Hackney on the site of the 2012 Olympic games.

- Once the Olympics, we got the Olympics in 2006, this area has not looked back.

You know, it's been great for the area, for jobs and everything.

- [Anne-Marie] The Olympics are the largest highest profile mega event a nation can host.

However, for many host cities, the Olympics can do more harm than good; ecological damage, unsustainable building practices, communities being pushed aside, and the sheer cost.

This includes London, they ran over their original budget by 76%.

Despite the huge price tag, many used London as a successful example of how the Olympic games can be used to regenerate disinvested areas.

In their case, turning 500 acres of minimally used land into a destination with new housing, schools, an arena, entertainment, a center for innovation, anchored by an 80,000 seat stadium.

This is Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and it was the plan from the very beginning.

- At the time of the bid, the then London mayor, Ken Livingston said he wasn't interested in the sport.

He was interested in how this whole area could be regenerated.

- [Anne-Marie] Fast forward two mayors and the power of sport is still a tool London government uses to affect change.

- So a lot of my work is about sport and it's about how we use the power of sport to impact the lives of Londoners, both at an elite level, bringing the biggest best events to London but also how we marry that with investing in communities.

We wanted to not just invest in sport for sport's sake and people being active for the sake of it but actually how do we use sport as a tool to divert people from getting involved in crime, to help people find job opportunities, to improve people's mental health and wellbeing.

- [Anne-Marie] The London Legacy Development Corporation operates Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The LLDC was formed as a mayoral development corporation following the games to engage the communities that live there, guide the physical development of the area and influence what they would inherit from the games.

But not all East Londoners felt they were a part of the progress.

Peter Tudor is the director of park operations and venues here at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

- It was extremely complicated, lots of land to be bought, work out who the owners were and purchase it.

And then a fence went up and that became a dividing barrier.

And that became a challenge because the fence went up for the build, from sort of 2005, six, all the way through to the games but then of course, the fence stays up for the games.

Unless you've got a ticket, you don't get to come in.

And then it stayed up again for the transformation.

- [Anne-Marie] This transformation didn't happen overnight.

The fences didn't start coming down until a year after the games ended.

London gave themselves a 20-year timeline for the regenerative effect of the 2012 Olympic Games to take hold.

They're currently in year 11, a whole generation will have lived before the legacy of the games will be complete.

- Just before this bit reopened, I came up here, brought a classroom of kids up here who could see their school.

But for all of their lives, the fence had been up.

So to say to them, to say to the community, this is actually yours now, this big public park with all of its green spaces and fresh air and opportunities to take in, the art that's dotted around the park and enjoy the sports.

It was quite eye-opening just to think they've never, they don't know what this vision is that we've had for so long.

(soft upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] The 2012 Olympics, its legacy was to change the face of East London and bring new economic life and opportunity to the local community, turning the Olympic stadium into a permanent destination for soccer supporters, concert goers, and home field for our Redbirds and their scores of fans who would travel thousands of miles to be there.

(bright upbeat music) (bright drum music) Back here in St. Louis, we have our own disinvested parts of our city including downtown.

Like Stratford, St. Louis is a city that established its importance as a river port.

(bright drum music) According to the 1950 census, at the height of industrialization, St. Louis was the seventh most populous city in the U.S.. (bright drum music) This was St. Louis's peak, population numbers began to decline after that and it hasn't stopped.

Similar to Stratford, de-industrialization moved manufacturing jobs out of St. Louis.

Between 1950 and 2000, the city of St. Louis lost more than half its population.

We had white flight, and on the west side of downtown, city leaders tore down Mill Creek, an occupied residential black neighborhood in the name of progress.

(bright drum music) Recessions, the departure of an NFL team, a global pandemic, crime, these are just a few of the many modern day obstacles that have gotten in the way of downtown St. Louis's progress.

- That's one thing that we are missing right now in our city is unity.

We've been a city that's been divided by racism, been divided by political thoughts but for us to be able to actually grow and maintain that diversity, we all have to be unified and working on one accord and having one message.

- [Anne-Marie] While we don't have an Olympic games to catapult us into regeneration, we do have opportunities to unite our city.

And while yes, sports aren't for everyone, it can be argued that our major league teams and their venues are breathing life into and unifying our downtown and region.

- If you look at any city, you know when you're trying to build a story, you wanna look for your natural authentic assets.

And I don't think anybody would argue that St. Louis isn't a sports town, whether that's baseball, with our hockey.

I think that it does play to our strengths to have a new sport here.

- [Anne-Marie] In downtown west, the demolition of the Mill Creek neighborhood never resulted in the commercial progress it was promised.

That is until now.

(crowd chanting) This is the inaugural season for St. Louis City SC and fans here cannot get enough of soccer.

- Well, this part of downtown, nothing was going on.

And now we have a Sunday night, it's 8:30, we've got 25,000 people down here.

They came down a few hours earlier.

They ate, they drank, it's fantastic.

(crowd chanting) (bright upbeat music) - When a a city gets an expansion team, they may go out to the suburbs to build that stadium and then the practice fields.

And this ownership group said, "No, we want to be a positive force "in the revitalization of urban St.

Louis."

And so they intentionally went into the downtown west which was kind of a hole in our city.

There was just nothing really there.

And knew that if they came in there and did things right, they could catalyze investment around there.

- The MLS commissioner really applauded the investment of the Taylor family and the innovation that was brought by the city in order to make this possible.

He said that having a stadium in the urban core with the MLS team at the center is really unique and creates opportunity for the city to move into the next stage of our evolution.

- [Anne-Marie] And that right there is key.

Spreading the economic impact past the soccer fields, regenerating not just the land that CityPark sits on but the whole neighborhood around it, making it more than just a place you'd come for games.

Sounds easy, right?

Well, we know that St. Louis, our city and our region have plenty of challenges to address and overcome.

We aren't ignoring those, it's just that this not only isn't one of them, what's happening in downtown west, if done right, can be a catalyst for opportunity.

It requires partnerships with public and private sectors including the community but it won't happen overnight, just ask our friends in London.

- So it's taken us 10 years but it's an amazing campus we've created.

- [Anne-Marie] This is Gavin Poole, CEO of Here East, located in the heart of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

- We were very successful in winning the rights to take on three buildings which were built for London 2012 which was the home for all of the TV stations and studios and the journalists at that time who put Olympics on our screens around the world.

And we converted these buildings into a new campus for innovation and collaboration but focused on technology and the creative industries.

- [Anne-Marie] Often Olympic host cities are left with structures that simply aren't practical to use; sit empty and decay.

Here East exists in a million square feet of space, repurposed as a hub for global businesses and startups alongside universities who are developing talent and creating a career pipeline.

- And now we've got a vibrant community of over 6,000 people with 120 startups, 30 core businesses, five research led universities.

I think this success of Here East is based not just on what we've done, it's based on the whole of the work which the London Legacy Development Corporation, the communities within which we sit really benefit from what we are doing and others around us are doing.

The jobs that we've created, we compete locally.

The supply chains, wherever possible, we ensure that everybody able to go into local supply chain.

Be talent development, we make sure we have proper training courses so that we can reach into the local community and it works.

So it's not down to a single sole actor that's made this a huge success.

- [Anne-Marie] Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has other legacy venues; the Velodrome, Aquatic Center, Copper Box Arena, and of course, the stadium.

They're all being utilized.

But now those venues aren't the only reason to be there or their surrounding neighborhoods.

There's dining, festivals, playground, shopping, new housing and hotels.

Now we're not making a direct comparison between St. Louis and East London, but there are things we can learn from them and what they've done there.

- And this is a time to bring a soccer team.

And so we approach 'em- - [Anne-Marie] while in town for the Cardinal games, delegates from our region participated in discussions with peers from London about using the power of sports to affect change.

- And so the vision was bring a soccer team to St. Louis, a global unifying sport that can unify, galvanize a community and create a platform to create economic development and social and economic development in St. Louis.

We have provided a unbelievable atmosphere where fans show up, unite together for 90 minutes for something as simple as a sport.

And the fans, if anybody's ever been to a game from St. Louis, everybody stands and cheers and chants and sing but we all do it together and it's an amazing experience.

That's the beginning.

We use that as a platform to launch and get that outside the stadium.

That is the ROI that we're looking for.

- I think having the humility to understand that sometimes there were people in communities before you got there, oftentimes disinvested communities have a difficult time thinking that they can both see investment and acknowledgement and respect, those things typically don't go hand in hand.

When someone becomes interested in your neighborhood, it often is a sign that you may be displaced from your neighborhood or your perspective may not be valued.

So to balance those two values sometimes creates tension.

- When you were talking about St. Louis, I think one of the things that is interesting is people come into an area and they kinda think that they're bringing the innovation and we often say that actually, just look at the people on the ground; there's a lot of innovation, there's a lot of infrastructures there that you have the opportunity to build on or to learn from.

And I think that's been integral to the work that you do.

And I think the rest of this area is something that we can look at as where can we learn from?

- It takes time.

What it takes is people to be here for the long haul.

Peter, I've known since the beginning when I first started this thing for the crazy idea back in 2012, we are still here.

There's other people around, other developers around, the directors have changed and changed and changed and changed.

And those who give the commitment, they've got the right to speak into a community, they've got the relationships within the community, they've got relationships across the park, and we can all actually come together, collaborate and have a much bigger impact.

- What's great to me to be here is to see where you all are and what's possible for us 'cause we're at the beginning of our journey.

We want to touch the lives of thousands of kids in the community.

Maybe if some of 'em become professional footballers, that would be great.

That would be very helpful for us.

Maybe we keep winning because of that.

Maybe hundreds of them go on and get college scholarships.

That would be fantastic too.

And maybe the rest just learn life skills through team sports.

Team sports produce great life skills and that would be really where we wanna be in 20 years.

(bright upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] Thein is referring to CITY Futures, a program the team hopes will promote soccer in the region making it accessible to all in St. Louis.

CITY Futures has no cost programs and community initiatives that help not just kids but adults as well to access the game of soccer and the sense of community and social benefits it brings.

Since the spring of 2022, CITY Futures has reached more than 2,000 children.

- You know it's more than just a real estate investment or an investment in a team in in the city of St. Louis but it's really an investment in our entire community.

- [Anne-Marie] St. Louis city knows what they want to achieve off the pitch but if they meet all their goals and this city and the private sector do not capitalize on the team's presence, their investment will not have reached its full potential and St. Louis will have missed out on much needed economic development.

- So economic development is really a team sport, right?

It's really bringing everyone together from the private sector to the public sector and finding common ground.

How do we create win-win opportunities for all St. Louisans?

That requires investments in education, that requires investment in childcare, grocery stores, all of the amenities that really create the quality of life that our residents deserve and desire.

(whistle whistling) (crowd cheering) - [Anne-Marie] Since their inaugural season began in March of this year, St. Louis City SC has created 200 full-time jobs in the city of St. Louis and over 300 part-time CityPark event positions.

In the surrounding neighborhood, over 1,000 new residential units, eight new or renovated restaurants and bars, two new hotels, and 3,600 plus square feet of new high tech office space.

But as we've heard from developers in London, intentionally up-skilling and re-skilling our workforce is a big way our community can feel the positive impact of sport.

Developers, manufacturers, business owners, they want to invest in cities where there's equitable progress, strong communities, and a solid, strong workforce.

In May 2021, greater St. Louis Inc released the 2030 jobs plan, a 10-year roadmap for boosting economic growth, increasing the number of quality living wage jobs, and reducing racial disparities in employment to boost opportunities for all.

It requires a regional, unified approach, one that was successful in securing federal dollars from the Build Back Better Grant.

- In the past there might have been 10 plans that were taken from St. Louis, 10 different approaches to this grant and instead, the community came together and said one plan.

And we had a lot of the work done, we had identified what the strategic projects were that we needed to implement to help growth here in St. Louis.

And so, we brought that plan forward and St. Louis was one of 21 cities, regions, that won this Build Back Better Grant.

For us it was $21 million.

- [Anne-Marie] Our region's workforce of a future needs to be trained now.

Part of the Build Back Better Grant is funding the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center in North St. Louis.

- And that's one thing you can't necessarily import and export all the time, right?

It's talent.

But we want to be able to attract businesses from across the globe to St. Louis.

And if we're not investing in that talent, it's a very hard sell on our region and our city because that is one of the greatest assets that every company looks for and that's human resources.

(bright upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] So we have the global sport of soccer drawing fans across our region into the heart of our city.

We have a national league hockey team where magically everyone bleeds blue.

And then there's our historic baseball team where fans will travel across the globe to support on a world stage.

With any luck, St. Louisans will unite around that and use the power of the pitch to improve, heal and grow not just our city, but our region.

- But if you not gonna fail, we're gonna show y'all how we do it in St. Louis.

(bright drum music) - [Anne-Marie] And who knows, maybe one day, Cardinal fans from East London will flock to St. Louis, sleep in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, just to watch our Redbirds play.

(bright drum music) (bright drum music) - [Announcer] The "Power of the Pitch" is supported in part by UMB Bank and the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation.

(bright drum music) (bright drum music) (bright drum music)