East Hamilton softball coach Norma Nelson jokes with an umpire during the championship final softball game of the East Hamilton Softball Tournament against Ooltewah at the Summit of Softball complex on Saturday, April 29, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.According to a story this week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, GHSA executive director Robin Hines said the state’s high school sports ruling body is considering moving the football championships out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
While Hines said a vote on the matter is not imminent, he said the price of playing the games in the three-year-old stadium (about $600,000 last year) was not cost-efficient for schools. The Georgia Dome, where the finals were played from 2008 to 2015, was about half the cost of Mercedes-Benz for the eight-game, two-day event.
Alternative neutral sites with at least a 20,000-seat capacity could be Georgia State Stadium, the former Turner Field, Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium, Georgia’s Sanford Stadium and Georgia Southern’s Paulson Stadium.
Hines also said the GHSA is not considering moving the finals back to school sites.
Nelson honored