RANTOUL, III (WAND) - The scoreboard is officially lit at the Rantoul Family Sports Complex as the first baseball tournament is underway! 

The sports complex opened their doors for their first weekend tournament, with teams from all over the state of Illinois. Over 1,000 athletes are gearing up in their jerseys, ready for their first game at the sports complex. Teams from Chicago, Bloomington, Arcola, Mattoon, even one team from Cedar Rapids, Iowa made their way to Central Illinois to compete in the historic first tournament. 

“It's really exciting to finally see all these teams come in and so when you're at a restaurant or you're in the mall in Champaign, you're gonna see a bunch of baseball uniforms and cleats and that's really the whole point." Ryan Reid, Sports Operations Manager at the complex tells WAND News about the excitement behind the scenes of the first tournament. 

The sports complex is 70 acres of all you can dream sports. Reid says "we've got 10 baseball diamonds, two of which are challenger fields that we have for adaptive sports and Special Olympic athletes, and then we have eight soccer multipurpose fields.” 

The Rantoul Family Sports Complex is set to take tourism in Central Illinois up a couple notches. All hotels in the Rantoul area are completely booked for the first weekend tournament. Reid says this is just the beginning.

“We're gonna see an influx of business hotels, restaurants, attractions. It's going to be a massive sports tourism destination." Reid says.

Luckily, COVID-19 did not slow them down as much as they thought it would. Reid says the pandemic only affected their supply chain inventory, but were still able to continue to build the site in time for their first tournament.

"We are over the moon to be here today and we're, we're happy that we could be on time to host our very first tournament we didn't have to delay or cancel it.” Reid tells WAND News.

The Rantoul Sports Family Complex is not just for Rantoul but for the entire Champaign County and beyond to enjoy. Reid says he wants the complex to be a place where people from all over can come to play in one way or another. “We want to invite these people here, we want them to have a great experience. We want people to come out, enjoy the playground watch some baseball and some softball and and have a good time.” 

Although the complex is not completely finished yet, Reid says the final product should be done by June.