This year, the panel of recognized experts, practitioners and academics associated with marketing, communications, sports and business awarded the DEMES award in 12 categories. The category in which the Sports Bay was the winner primarily recognizes competent facility management. Competent management is understood as taking excellent care over the quality of hosted events, effective cooperation with the local sports community as well as with partners and suppliers.
Rector professor Krzysztof Jóźwik, known for his love of sports, said,
‘The award is a recognition of the five-year performance of the Sports Bay. The construction of this facility came at a great financial cost, but it has been well worth it. Today, TUL Sports and Education Centre is visited by near to a thousand people daily, starting from a few-year-old beginner swimmers, through teenagers and students, to seasoned champions. They infuse the facility with their energy, naturally fulfilling the Lodz University of Technology's motto: raise your abilities to the nth power.
The investment worth in excess of 150 million złoty was co-financed by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the City of Lodz, the Marshal's Office of the Łódź Voivodeship, and Lodz University of Technology.
As Witold Nykiel, director of the Bay, points out, since its September 2017 opening, the Center has been the venue for many significant athletic events: last year's European Academic Games, multiple Polish championships in swimming, water jumping and synchronized swimming, to name but a few. Polish water polo champions ŁSTW Łódź as well as male and female ŁKS basketball players play league matches here. The Arena Grand Prix Cup of Poland and the Swimmers with Disabilities Meet are held every year.