Northport's River Run Park has a multi-state softball weekend on the calendar before the complex is much more than a year old. The Diamond Legacy Elite Invitational is scheduled Friday through Sunday, Nov. 13-15, with a welcome dinner for participating teams the night before.
The tournament is also listed as a Diamond Legacy Champions Cup Qualifier on the Diamond Legacy Events page. Tuscaloosa Thread reports that 65 elite teams from 19 states will play at the city-owned complex on the Black Warrior River. A SoftballTourneys listing is narrower, saying the event will accommodate approximately 60 teams.
Thursday Dinner, Then Long Days
The public schedule starts a day early for the teams. Dinner is expected for roughly 1,100 players and coaches on Thursday, Nov. 12, and University of Alabama head softball coach Patrick Murphy is scheduled to speak, Tuscaloosa Thread reported. Patch says Northport city officials will be on hand to welcome the participating teams.
That gathering is for the teams, not a general ticketed banquet. Once games start, the days run long: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.
Admission is $10 a day or $25 for a three-day pass, and children 10 and younger get in free. Three single-day tickets would come to $30, so the pass is the cheaper route for anyone planning to stay through Sunday.
Who Is Covering the Welcome
Buffalo Rock, HD Sports and Hospitality LLC, and local SmartBank branches are listed as tournament sponsors. HD Sports and Hospitality and SmartBank are sponsoring food for Thursday's opening ceremony, Patch reported. Buffalo Rock is also slated to provide beverages.
The sponsor list is local and practical rather than a national branding wall: a beverage company, a hospitality firm, and bank branches picking up the opening meal. For Diamond Legacy Events' first Alabama tournament, that is the visible private support.
A $27 Million Complex on the River
River Run Park opened in August 2025 as a $27 million complex with nine baseball and softball fields, Tuscaloosa Thread reported. The park's site describes nine top-tier turf fields. The SoftballTourneys listing instead calls it an all-turf facility with eight fields, so the public descriptions do not quite line up.
Chad Stears of Diamond Legacy Events was direct about the showpiece. "The signature softball stadium is one of the best we have seen in the country," he said. He has also said the park's facilities helped bring the invitational to Northport.
Forecasts That Are Not This Weekend's Score
City leaders have attached much larger numbers to River Run and the wider Northport Shore development than one invitational can settle. A 2025 ABC 33/40 report said they projected more than half a million visitors a year and about $60 million in revenue once that development was completed. Tuscaloosa Thread put the projection at 530,000 visitors and an estimated $68 million. Those are forecasts for the development, not a measured take from this tournament, and they do not match each other.
The city has also approved additional spending connected to the complex, including a maintenance building project and other park-related construction, ABC 33/40 reported. Separately, the park was reported as the site for an HBCU athletic conference's baseball and softball championships for three years starting in 2026.
For spectators this weekend, the number that is actually posted is at the gate: $10 a day or $25 for Friday through Sunday, with the first games scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday.
