How Much Will the 2027 Military World Games Cost North Carolina?

In May 2024, Ike Belk Jr. traveled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Inside a five-star hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean, the co-founder of Charlotte’s U.S. Performance Center lobbied members of the International Military Sports Council to bring the 2027 Military World Games to the Carolinas.

Belk also traveled to the Dominican Republic, Belgium, and Sri Lanka campaigning to bring upward of 10,000 athletes here. His USPC co-founder David Koerner also made a trip to Switzerland. 

Their pitch to hold the games on U.S. soil for the first time succeeded. In April 2025, the council, known by its French acronym CISM, announced that the summer games would occur in Charlotte. They are on the calendar for June 25 to July 4, 2027. 

Traditionally, governments host these games to build relationships between the world’s militaries off battlefields. But Belk and Koerner, two private citizens, are next year’s co-chairs–and their influence is woven throughout planning. 

The 10-day sporting event requires all-expenses-paid villages where competitors eat, sleep, and practice. Costs could reach $80 million, Belk told the Charlotte Business Journal. 

Whatever the final figure, taxpayers will foot a large part of the tab. 

In August, Republican lawmakers slipped $25 million for the Military World Games into a “technical corrections” bill for the budget. In November, the games’ organizers are also expected to make a public pitch asking the City of Charlotte to chip in millions of dollars. Organizers and supporters seek a security rating that would require “extensive federal interagency support.”

The award brings the amount of state funds that legislators have committed to athletics organizations linked to Belk and Koerner to $80 million. But there have been problems with past allocations.

A state internal audit of a previous $25 million state award to one organization, the Charlotte-based U.S. Performance Center, found one in four of those taxpayer dollars were misspent. That included the for-profit company paying itself for services, making a five-figure donation to a partisan charity, covering more than $13,000 in late fees to the IRS, and paying Koerner for “expenses” beyond salary. 

When the Office of State Budget and Management reviewed reported expenses of a USPC affiliate, the North Carolina Sports Legacy Foundation, it found it had used $10,000 for fundraising and attempted to bill the state for over $8,000 in taxes nonprofits don’t need to pay. 

Like the previous grants, the newly allocated funds weren’t competitively awarded and have minimal guardrails, raising questions over political favoritism, precisely how the money will be spent, and what the return on the state’s investment will be. 

While some U.S. Congress members from North and South Carolina are supportive, Democratic state legislators, council members in Charlotte, and a vice president of the conservative John Locke Foundation have all raised concerns about public tax dollars going to a private venture. 

Drive to Host Olympic-Level Sports

Belk, who briefly played professional tennis, and Koerner, a former college football player who has dedicated his career to sports rehabilitation, met nearly 20 years ago. They’ve collaborated to use amateur sports training to get their foot in the Olympic pipeline almost ever since. 

Belk’s great-grandfather founded the department store company that bears his name. His late paternal grandfather, a state legislator who brought the University of North Carolina at Charlotte into the UNC system, was a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee and on the UNC Board of Governors. He has said his long-term goal is to bring the Olympics to Charlotte, his home city, and serve his grandfather’s legacy. 

In 2015 the performance center landed a Community Olympic Development training site designation after partnering with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to teach students how to ice skate. In 2023 the Performance Center convinced UNC Charlotte, which doesn’t have a field hockey team, to build an Olympic-grade pitch on its campus, where the Women’s National Team now trains. 

Belk did not know the Military World Games existed a month before his Tanzania trip, he told The Assembly in 2024. He also didn’t know there was a formal approval process to host the typically quadrennial games, which are open to active-duty military members from around the world, he said on a podcast last March. 

Belk said he and Koerner decided to pursue the 2027 games with the encouragement of USA Pentathlon, the national governing body that promotes the modern pentathlon sport.

The summer games feature military-specific events, including pentathlons, orienteering, parachuting, and lifesaving, along with competitions like swimming, track and field, and volleyball. They stage opening and closing ceremonies. 

Competitors, who are active-duty members and some veterans, are invited from about 140 of the world’s 195 countries. The host nation’s head of state and military leaders usually attend the ceremonies. 

At an August committee meeting, Charlotte council member Malcolm Graham stressed how the games can have a positive impact for the city. “It really doubles down,” Graham said, “on our efforts to raise international relations and international recruitment and international participation on a wide variety of scales.

Past games were held in countries that train their elite athletes in the military, such as Italy, Brazil, and India, where taxpayer-funded contracts went to friends of government leaders and were rife with over-invoicing and fraudulent bidding. Charlotte organizers are looking at holding next year’s competition in civilian spaces with state taxpayer money funding venue upgrades, the Charlotte Business Journal has reported. 

Critics of the decision to hold the games in the U.S. point to both the costs and potential security risks related to bringing in active-duty military from foreign adversaries. 

“It just didn’t make sense,” said Davis Tutt, the senior director of sports tourism for the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation. His organization was approached in late 2023 by fellow Coloradan Eli Bremer, a former Air Force pentathlete and onetime head of the state’s GOP, to bid for the games, he said. 

In Colorado Springs, the most logical venue to safely house foreign militaries was an Air Force base, which Tutt didn’t believe would provide a return on what the Colorado group estimated to be a $45 million cost. For one, there isn’t much revenue to be generated from broadcasting military sports, nor do the games draw the kind of opportunities for out-of-state tourism and commerce that come with hosting the Olympics, Tutt said. 

An economic impact analysis from the University of South Carolina’s business school concluded that the 2027 Military World Games could generate $160 million in local visitor spending on hotels, restaurants, and transportation, and another $240 million to operate the event, including sponsorships and ticketing. It built that analysis with data provided by the U.S. Performance Center, according to the report.

Brian Balfour, a senior vice president of research at the conservative John Locke Foundation, cautioned that economic impact reports are often optimistic and fail to acknowledge the opportunity costs of where else the money could go.

“If we’re to take this economic impact study seriously, if anything, it undercuts the need for any taxpayer dollars to subsidize this event,” Balfour said. “If it’s going to have such a huge impact and positive impact on the local economy, why are taxpayer dollars even needed for that?” 

Should the event get a top federal security rating, it will “create a net gain in economic activity for North Carolina,” due to federal agencies covering most of the security costs, whereas the state’s funding just moves “state-level expenditures from one sector of the North Carolina economy to another.” 

The predicted spending outcome would far exceed documented financial impacts from other state sporting events included in the NC Chamber Foundation’s 2026 report on North Carolina’s sports economy. The 2025 men’s NCAA first- and second-round championship games brought in $16.4 million in direct spending, accounting for more than 20,000 hotel room nights, meals bought, and gas sales. 

A Host of Known Unknowns

The Military Games’ local organizing committee is responsible for planning, securing venues, serving as the point of contact for foreign militaries, and reports to the USPC and CISM, according to its invitation to foreign militaries. Belk, Koerner, several performance center staff members, and Mitch Sprengelmeyer, who also serves on the board of Belk and Koerner’s athletic software company, are members.

In June, the organizing committee hired Jeremiah Shirk as chief operating officer. He directed operations and coordination for the 2016 Republican National Convention and President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration. 

Little about specific plans for the games has been publicly disclosed. Among the questions that exist are where the games will be held, whether the organizers will also be asking for money from Mecklenburg County, what taxpayer money will fund, and how much private funding is being sought. Organizers have not answered these questions or many others from The Assembly. 

But some information is trickling out as Belk and Koerner appear on small, supportive podcasts, and in presentations with Charlotte business leaders or government officials.

Among the glimpses revealed: Parachuting, taekwondo, and Naval pentathlon competitions are confirmed. And in early October, Belk told the Charlotte Ledger they were “intimately finalizing details” with Lake Norman State Park, where triathlons and open-water swimming contests have been held.

In April, the Charlotte group hosted CISM leadership for a tour to venues including Truist Field, the Bojangles Coliseum, American Legion Memorial Stadium, the National Whitewater Center, and the Belk Track and Field at UNC Charlotte, named for Ike Belk’s grandfather, who funded more than 30 tracks on college and school campuses nationwide. In the Charleston area, they toured the Citadel’s campus and the Patriots Point waterfront.

UNC Charlotte is confirmed as a host venue. At its April board of trustees meeting, Chancellor Sharon Gaber shared that “approximately 76% of Charlotte-based activities” will take place on campus and the university will be the primary athlete village. 

The campus has modified its summer academic calendar and will have a near-total ban on campus access for students and faculty during the games. 

Other potential venues on the games’ invitation include the Tryon International Equestrian Center, the Greensboro Aquatic Center, and the Hyatt Farms Shooting Complex. 

“Venue planning is still advancing, and not every facility currently under discussion will ultimately be part of the Games,” Shirk wrote in an email to The Assembly on Sept. 16. “Businesses and venues interested in being considered can [still] express interest.”

Belk suggested otherwise on a podcast that aired one week later. “We have all the venues,” he said, adding that they spread across two states and eight cities and counties. 

When asked by The Assembly to explain the discrepancy, Shirk did not respond.

Not Your Usual Grant

The state’s $25 million allocation sidestepped the Major Events, Games, and Attractions Fund, which legislators created in 2023 to support similar sporting events. That fund is administered by the Department of Commerce and requires additional oversight and sufficient economic activity “to justify the use of State funds,” like full-time job creation and private, external investment.

Lauren Horsch, a spokesperson for the Senate’s highest-ranking lawmaker, Sen. Phil Berger, did not answer questions about why the request for funding did not go to the Major Events fund, which recently financially supported for NASCAR events, a Major League Soccer all-star game, and will bring the Women’s Tennis Association’s finals to Charlotte in 2027. 

Horsch stressed that the state funding will be released only if the organizing committee meets requirements, including obtaining a security rating that comes with federal investment and having 50 countries preliminarily commit to participating. Such requirements are “similar to other state-funded grants for projects with significant economic development impacts,” she said. 

“The only specification is the $7.5 million to reserve the facilities at UNC Charlotte. The other $17.5 (million) it’s just basically, here you go, have the event without a lot of specific guardrails,” Balfour said. 

Members of North and South Carolina’s congressional delegations have sent letters to federal officials supporting the games, including to War Department Secretary Pete Hegseth and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In a July letter, Rep. Tim Moore asked that Homeland Security “elevate” the games’ rating to the highest level, and establish a White House Task Force that could, among other things, facilitate visa processing. 

In August, at least one military branch issued a call for active duty and reserve members to apply to participate in the games as athletes or coaches. Marine Corps athletes were invited to apply to compete and coach for 18 sports, with the military covering travel, entry fees, uniforms, and pay 

“It’s going to be amazing Olympic-style events, and then you have kind of the military-esque events, parachuting, that will be unique,” Belk said on a podcast in October. “People can come out and support our active service members, our potential Olympians, and our veterans.” 

While the “technical corrections” budget bill that included the $25 million for the games passed with full Republican support, roughly half of Democrats opposed the bill in both chambers. On the floor, Democratic state Rep. Marcia Morey questioned whether the funds earmarked for the Military Games could be better used. 

“Let’s look to the West and Hurricane Helene victims, or let’s look to our food banks, or let’s look to legal aid that was cut,” Morey said. “Let’s look to the people in need in North Carolina and not the sports industry.”

The Military Games organizing committee initially sought an additional $23 million from the city of Charlotte, but in early August pared its ask down to $16.5 million, with $4.5 million requested for its coffers, and up to $12 million as in-kind support for the games. 

Members of the local organizing committee were asked to make a formal proposal at a November meeting, which will determine whether it goes to the council.

At an August meeting of the Charlotte City Council’s economic development and workforce committee, the prospect of committing city funds to the Military Games drew questions from four of the nine council members in attendance.

Council member LaWana Mayfield asked how funding the games might divert taxpayer funds from other previously identified needs. “Just because you can ask for it doesn’t mean we have to say yes to it,” she said. “So if the state has already allocated a considerable amount, I’m trying to understand exactly what is the benefit of us allocating $4.5 million.” 

Shirk was joined at the August meeting by Towers Mingledorff, who was the chief operating officer for the nonprofit host committee for the 2020 Republican National Convention and worked as staff for Republicans in the General Assembly, Congress, and on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Mingledorff is also a registered NC lobbyist whose client list includes the only publicly named sponsor to the games, Charlotte Pipe and Foundry. 

Funding the games will draw “on every available resource; sponsorships, private investment, economic development dollars and more,” Shirk wrote in an email on September 19 to The Assembly.

While the organizers’ marketing materials stress that the games will occur in the Carolinas, they did not ask the South Carolina Legislature, the City of Charleston, or South Carolina’s Department of Commerce for funding, spokespeople for the three governmental bodies told The Assembly.