EnlargeThe inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship game brought 85,689 fans to… more
Every college football fan knows that winning starts with recruiting. Charlotte tourism executives did some recruiting of their own this week while hosting the College Football Playoff committee.
Their goal: hosting the national championship game in 2019 or 2020.
Bill Hancock, who runs the playoff organization, led a four-person delegation on a blitz through town that started Monday afternoon and ended 24 hours later on Tuesday. Stops included the N.C. Music Factory, the Charlotte Convention Center, Time Warner Cable Arena, BBT BallPark, Romare Bearden Park and several uptown hotels.
The tour ended Tuesday at Bank of America Stadium, the 74,000-seat NFL stadium that would host the game if Charlotte is selected as a future championship site.
The Charlotte Sports Foundation is leading the local bid campaign. A decision by the college playoff committee on sites for 2018 through 2020 is expected by November.
“I think they were wowed by a lot of what they saw in Charlotte,” Will Webb, executive director of the sports foundation, told me Tuesday. “We’ve got a fabulous stadium. It was a good visit. We’ll see what happens.”
Others traveling with Hancock included Michael Kelly, the chief operating officer of the playoff organization. Kelly knows Charlotte and the uptown stadium quite well. From 2007 to 2012, he worked at the Atlantic Coast Conference in Greensboro, where he led the league’s football side. During that time, Kelly and the ACC moved the conference championship to Charlotte, where it has stayed since 2010. The ACC also sends a member school to the Belk Bowl, played each December at BofA Stadium since 2002.
Receive Charlotte Business Journal’s Morning Edition and Afternoon Edition newsletters and breaking news alerts.
Leave a Reply