The NSW State Cup touch football carnival will stay in Port Macquarie for the next three years.
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Port Macquarie held off compelling bids from a number of leading regional locations including Wollongong, Queanbeyan, Wagga Wagga and Dubbo to win the tender.
It will now stage the three-day tournament from 2023-2025.
Now the region had been pushed right to the edge, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council Mayor Peta Pinson said it is important to keep improving the town's sporting facilities.
"We pride ourselves on being the home of touch and off the back of this successful bid we can't rest on our laurels now," she said.
"So we really do need to step it up with our sporting precincts in and around the airport. I really do want to see more investment into the stadium and the drainage issues we've got on Tuffins Lane itself.
"The impetus of the attention of hosting the cup for the next three years should give us the energy to move forward and really focus on improving [the Boundary Street and Tuffins Lane facilities] as a premier sporting precinct."
Port Macquarie Touch Association president Wayne Prince admitted a sense of relief that the three-day carnival and the region will continue their long and storied history.
The very first Cup was played in Port Macquarie in 1977.
"I would have been very disappointed if we had have lost it because we've had successful State Cups here for the last 33 years apart from one and one in 33 isn't too bad of a ratio," he said.
"We've got infrastructure, we've got volunteers who step forward every year and provide NSW Touch with everything they need."
NSW Touch Association general manager Dean Russell admitted it was a "close... very close" tender process.
It was the maintenance and drainage work scheduled for the Regional Stadium playing surfaces on both fields which provided Port Macquarie's overall tender with the edge.
"The work being done on the stadium and field one supported the tender, but we're hopeful more works will be done on the outside fields as well," Mr Russell said.
And while the three-decade partnership with the community and the Port Macquarie-Hastings region couldn't be discounted, it was the lack of "price gouging" from accommodation providers that also helped the bid.
"We haven't seen price gouging at a high level across a range of factors, especially accommodation," Mr Russell said.
"I know there were some hiccups with cancellations with the weather event through 2021 and earlier 2022 but in the main most accommodation houses have worked with our community and not against them.
"That hasn't been the case at other locations we have taken our events to which went in [Port Macquarie's] favour as well."
Mr Russell acknowledged other aspects of the challenging tender bids were arguably stronger than Port Macquarie's, but Port Macquarie also had an edge in others.
"This time around it really took a lot of analysis and a lot of thought and looking into the benefits for the sport overall," he said.
"At the end of the day we felt right now in our history of the sport it was best to stay in Port Macquarie."
The 2023 NSW State Cup will be played from December 1-3.
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