Chattanooga a finalist for FCS title venue

As expected, Chattanooga is one of the finalists to host the NCAA's 2010-12 Football Championship Subdivision's national-title games. The NCAA informed Greater Chattanooga Sports & Events Committee president Scott Smith via e-mail Monday that the city was still a candidate.

The 13th consecutive FCS final at Chattanooga's Finley Stadium is set for Dec. 18.

"I think we'd have been a little upset if we weren't a finalist," Smith said.

Another city still in the mix is Frisco, Texas, a Dallas suburb. Tom Burnett, commissioner of the Southland Conference, which is based in Frisco and would serve as the host, said he got a call Monday from the NCAA with the news that Frisco had advanced.

"Obviously, we were very happy to get that phone call," Burnett said.

Whether those are the only two finalists hasn't been revealed. Five cities submitted bids to host the game, and the NCAA Division I Football Championship committee selected the finalists at a meeting Sunday.

The NCAA informed the advancing cities Monday, but Damani Leech, the association's director of football and baseball, said last month that the NCAA would not release any information on the selection process until the host city is announced on March 2.

The other bidding cities were Missoula, Mont.; Spokane, Wash.; and Little Rock, Ark. Eric Sawyer, executive director of the Spokane Regional Sports Commission, said Monday afternoon that he hadn't heard from the NCAA. Calls to University of Montana athletic director Jim O'Day and Central Arkansas athletic director Dr. Brad Teague were not returned.

Bids to host the game were due in by Oct. 12, but the finalists can now adjust their bids and improve their packages before they present them to the NCAA in late February. Smith said he didn't anticipate any changes being made to Chattanooga's bid.

"I don't foresee us changing anything unless somebody calls us and says, 'Hey, I've got $50,000 I want to give you to put toward the bid (financial guarantee),'" Smith said. "We did all of our work on the front end."

Burnett said he hadn't given any thought to whether Frisco would make any adjustments to its bid. There were not plans to do so, he said.

Representatives from Frisco, and any other finalist, will be invited by the NCAA to attend this year's championship game. That will give them a firsthand look at how Chattanooga hosts the event, which might work to their advantage when they go before the NCAA.

That concerns Smith since Chattanooga won't have the opportunity to critique the other finalists, but Burnett said he didn't look at it that way.

"I don't know that we'll be looking to compare ourselves to Chattanooga or anyone else. We want to present a well-defined list of what we have to offer," he said.

Burnett said he would like to see the game move to Frisco and its 23,500-seat Pizza Hut Park, but as a conference commissioner and an avid supporter of the FCS, he said he also wants to see the title game continue to grow and prosper.

"I'm invested in FCS football's future. ... I'd be fine if it was on the moon, if that would help," he said. "I've always thought the toughest thing in all of this would be have it move or take it away from Chattanooga. They've done a really good job with it."

The championship game has drawn at least 12,360 since moving to Chattanooga in 1997, and the Sports Committee estimated the economic impact of the 2008 game to be $1.3 million.

The NCAA announced the 16-team playoff field Sunday. The playoffs begin Saturday.