College football’s national championship game is coming to Atlanta.
The marquee event will be played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium – the Falcons’ new home under construction downtown — on Jan. 8, 2018, College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said Wednesday afternoon.
The game will cap the first football season in the stadium, which is slated to open in March 2017.
Atlanta was competing against Miami, Houston and Santa Clara, Calif., for the game.
It’s the second national mega-event awarded to Atlanta’s new $1.4 billion stadium. Late last year, the NCAA decided to play college basketball’s men’s Final Four there in 2020.
Atlanta also is preparing a bid to bring an even larger event to the stadium: the Super Bowl.
NFL owners will choose in May among Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and Tampa as the 2019 and 2020 Super Bowl sites. Preliminary bids are due in mid-November. Atlanta’s preference is the February 2019 Super Bowl.
The College Football Playoff – a four-team postseason tournament – debuted last season, immediately becoming one of the highest-profile events in American sports.
Playoff officials also chose the sites of the January 2019 and January 2020 games Wednesday: Santa Clara and New Orleans, respectively.
Atlanta’s bid group included representatives of the Atlanta Sports Council, the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Falcons, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and Georgia Tech.
The playoff’s management committee, which chooses the sites, consists of 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director.
Please click here for a full story at MyAJC.com with more details and reaction to Atlanta landing the game.
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