CWS: Businesses Counting the Cash - FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; kptm.com |

Curt Casper

OMAHA (KPTM) – The College World Series ended yesterday when the Arizona Wildcats won the National Championship and now businesses will be counting the cash in the register to see just how well they did during the last two weeks.

Fox 42 spoke with a majority of the bars in the Old Market. Each owner had a different answer when asked how much CWS traffic they had. One bar owner said he actually did worse this year, over last year.

After the 2011 CWS bar owners complained about the lack of business downtown. They said the alcohol tents near T-D Ameritrade were taking most of the costumers.

City officials met with those owners to try and attract more fans to the area.

John Wade is the owner of Twisted Fork in the Old Market. He said business doubled from last year. He credits the change of times for the baseball games. He said it allowed for more fans to come to his restaurant during the day.

But even he admits the number of costumers in his restaurant needs to grow during the CWS.

"We have tons of hotel guests people coming in for the series, but it seems the locals shy away," he said.

He believes next year's series will be even better; it will be third times a charm.

"They have seen it now, and I think they will probably end up spreading out a little bit more kind of going back to having a sit down dinner maybe go back to the Old Market," he said.

Other business owners in the Old Market tell Fox 42 canceling the Opening Ceremonies and not having a baseball game on Tuesday night hurt the cash flow.

As far as the actual economic numbers, they will likely be released later this week.