SALT LAKE CITY — Sports tourism continues to be a large draw in Salt Lake County and across the U.S., and local tourism officials say they believe it’s only going to continue as the Utah Mammoth and potentially more teams enter the region’s realm.

That, in turn, can be large for the county’s economy.

“Tourism is the front door to economic development,” said Kaitlin Eskelson, president and CEO of Visit Salt Lake, the county’s tourism wing, as she welcomed people into the county’s annual Sports Tourism Summit Thursday morning. “Every time we welcome a major sporting event, convention or leisure travel every year, it brings in new dollars to our community. … They expand our economy rather than circulate within it.”

The sports side of the tourism industry is often broken up into two camps:

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