Built by athletes.
Designed for community.
Lake Norman Sports Village was born from a simple observation: the fastest-growing region in North Carolina has no place for its athletes to compete. Thousands of families drive hours every weekend to play in someone else's tournament, in someone else's town, spending their money in someone else's economy. We're here to change that.
55,000 athletes with nowhere to play
Across Lincoln, Catawba, and Iredell Counties, more than 55,000 youth athletes participate in organized sports. They train in aging school gyms, compete on undersized fields, and travel out of state for every serious tournament. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in hotel nights, restaurant spending, and retail revenue leave the Lake Norman region every single weekend.
A proven blueprint that already works
Rocky Top Sports World in Gatlinburg, Tennessee was built for $22 million in 2014 through a city-county partnership. Ten years later, it has generated over $400 million in economic impact, attracted visitors from 48 states, and become a nationally recognized model for sports tourism. Lake Norman Sports Village follows this exact playbook — adapted for our region, our athletes, and our community.
More than a facility
LNSV is an 80-acre campus with an indoor tournament hall, outdoor championship fields, an elite performance center, a fitness and wellness center, batting cages, a full-service restaurant, and community event space. It is designed to generate revenue 365 days a year — not just on tournament weekends — serving everyone from five-year-old beginners to college-bound recruits to adults looking for a place to stay active.
Zero taxpayer cost
LNSV is structured as a public-private partnership. The county contributes land and bonding authority backed by new tourism revenue. Private capital funds the construction. The community gets a $50 million+ annual economic engine, 175 permanent jobs, and 30,000 hotel nights per year — without a single dollar coming from existing taxpayer funds.
The team behind the village
Shaine
Founder & developerA U.S. military veteran and Project Executive at one of North Carolina's largest general contractors, Shaine brings hands-on experience delivering large-scale construction for Fortune 100 clients including Intel, AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
That experience building world-class facilities is now focused on building something for his own community. Shaine lives in Denver, NC — minutes from Lake Norman — and saw firsthand what every local sports parent already knows: there is nowhere to play.
LNSV is his answer. Not a concept. Not a study. A real project with real entities, real capital strategy, and real relationships with the counties who will partner to make it happen.
Tyler Vermillion
Sports programming & partnershipsA former college baseball player, Tyler understands competitive athletics from the inside. He brings deep relationships across the tournament organizer, travel team, and league network landscape that will fill LNSV's calendar from day one.
Tyler leads sports programming development — building the tournament schedule, securing multi-year event contracts, recruiting travel team partnerships, and developing the youth academy and camp curriculum that keeps the facility active year-round.
His network is the pipeline. When LNSV opens its doors, the teams will already be booked.
What we're building for Lake Norman
This is not just a sports complex. It is a permanent economic engine for the tri-county region — a place where young athletes develop into college recruits, where families spend weekends without leaving the community, where tournament visitors discover Lake Norman for the first time and come back every year.
Every dollar spent inside LNSV ripples outward: into hotel rooms, restaurants, gas stations, and retail shops. Every job created is a local job. Every tournament hosted is a weekend that stays here instead of leaving for Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg.