Two BlueCross Bowls at Finley have provided $5.5 million for Chattanooga

Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / The Baylor School student section cheers during last month's 38-34 topping of Montgomery Bell Academy at Finley Stadium during the Division II-AAA football state championship game. Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / The Baylor School student section cheers during last month's 38-34 topping of Montgomery Bell Academy at Finley Stadium during the Division II-AAA football state championship game.

By David Paschall January 17, 2023 4 min read

Two years into its Chattanooga stay, the BlueCross Bowl has encountered more than 50,000 fans descending upon Finley Stadium for the TSSAA football championship games.

Roughly $200,000 worth of food and beverages have been sold at the extravaganza, and the city itself has experienced an economic impact of $5.5 million. What’s not to like about those numbers, especially considering the TSSAA had never staged the BlueCross Bowl in Chattanooga until December 2021?

“The BlueCross Bowl was another huge success for all involved,” Finley Stadium executive director Brian Wright said Tuesday, “and working with Chattanooga Sports and all that we learned from year one really paid off. Things were smoother as far as traffic operations, better gate staffing and concession line management.

“Having experienced multiple Georgia state championships at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, I think Finley is the perfect venue for it, and Chattanooga, as a whole, goes above and beyond making it a great experience for all who visit.”

Last month marked Wright’s first BlueCross Bowl, but it was the second for Tim Morgan, the chief sports officer at Chattanooga Sports, which is a division of the Chattanooga Tourism Co. The BlueCross Bowl contains nine title matchups each year, and this past December’s crowd of 23,755 was shy of the 27,052 the first time around.

David Paschall

David Paschall has covered sports at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since 1999 and wrote for the Chattanooga Free Press in the nine years before that. David has mostly covered college athletics, with a focus on the University of Georgia from 2000 to 2019 and the University of Tennessee since 2020. He grew up in Chattanooga and is a graduate of the Baylor School and Auburn University. David has received multiple writing awards and has served as a Heisman Trophy voter since 2003. He has also worked in radio in Chattanooga and has been on the SEC Network's "Classic Rewind" series since 2014. David and his wife, Kelly, have three children — Conner, Emily and Spencer.

Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.