MSU baseball wins help boost Starkville’s economy

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The bulldogs have been doing well in Omaha and that only helps Starkville’s economy.

“You can really just see that um, it’s a living and breathing town. It’s not just some dead small town that’s like, falling on the wayside,” MSU Junior Dawson Ozborn said.

Tucked back in the northside of the MSU campus is the Carnegie Hall of college baseball. Over 15,000 people have gathered inside the stadium at the same time to cheer on the bulldogs.

“Man, it’s kind of hard to describe but it’s really just, you can just feel, physically, the air is just filled with like, electricity. It’s exciting, people are cheering, cowbells are going off, you can barely hear anything from the people beside you,” Osborn said.

And as go the Dawgs, so goes the town. Sports help shine a national spotlight on Starkville and the people who live here.

Local merchants say they stay ready for visitors.

“We’ll get an item in and then we’ll sell it out. I mean, it just goes that fast. And so, she’s constantly doing reorders and of course it’s all the baseball stuff,” Campus Bookmart employee Barabra Foster said.

Any tour of Starkville should include food – and lots of it.

To ESPN Anchors, Little Dooeys is the highlight of food in Starkville.

“Throughout those years, it’s just always helped and now we’re kind of a tourist destination that people come and check when they come to Starkville,” owner of Little Dooey, Bart Wood, said.

Favorites like Little Dooey are always busy. Since the dawgs have gone to Omaha, the Campus Bookmart right outside of campus has had more orders than before the season.

“I think when our football, baseball, basketball teams are all doing well, it really helps the Starkville economy. You know, everybody gets very excited and they’re willing to spend a little more money and so, it’s been good,” Foster said.

Whether it’s food or its hometown appeal, the publicity Starkville’s received because of the dawgs has businesses booming from the second they open their doors.

“I believe it’s was probably two weeks and it was then the very first Super Bulldog weekend. And on that Super Bulldog weekend, we looked up and there was a line across the bridge and from my vantage point, that line has not stopped,” Little Dooey cook Shirley Franklin said.