Keeping the SEC championship football game in downtown Atlanta will extend an arrangement that injects roughly $30 million into the region’s economy every December.
As reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the SEC has agreed to switch the high-profile title game from the Georgia Dome to the $1.4 billion Mercedes Benz Stadium starting in 2017 – the same year the Falcons start playing there. The deal lasts 10 years, with options to re-up after that.
Many big events and attractions just shift spending from one part of the region to another. But the SEC title game – like the Super Bowl – offers a significant economic upside, said economist Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center at the University of Georgia.
“These are the impact-rich events because you are attracting people from out of state,” he said. “And if both teams are from out of state, you get a pretty sizeable impact.”
The SEC title game is not as big an economic deal as the Super Bowl, an event that goes on for days and often spins off various entertainment activities.
The Super Bowl doesn’t come to Atlanta often, though, while the SEC title game is an annual sure thing that has typically drawn more than 70,000 people to the Georgia Dome.
Fans usually come from outside metro Atlanta and book hotel rooms, eat at local restaurants and spread money around other retail outlets, from gas stations to street vendors.
The SEC has played its championship game at the Georgia Dome since 1994. With the Dome slated for demolition, there was talk the SEC would consider other cities.
Having the game in the Falcons’ new retractable-roof stadium apparently beat any of the alternatives, though.
“You’re never going to know if it was crying wolf, but like it or not, that’s the world we live in where you’re always bidding against other places,” said economist Bruce Seaman of Georgia State University. “And the deal the deal is unprecedented – the 10 years, plus two five-year options. It almost makes it permanent.”
On Tuesday, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau deferred questions about the impact to economists. But last year, the bureau estimated the impact of the title game at $39 million.
That is higher than most economists’ estimates. For instance, Humphreys estimated that the average attendee spends $250 to $300. The spending would have an additional ripple effect of about half as much, meaning that 70,000 attendees could have a total economic impact of $31.5 million.
Sports economist J.C. Bradbury at Kennesaw State University said proponents usually don’t mention that some spending is lost when a big event scares away other conventions or visitors, he said.
And a glitzy new arena may convince many fans not to spend their food money with local restaurants, he said. “That’s great that they’re here and spending, but it means more money going to the Falcons.”
The SEC has agreed to pay a fee ranging from $450,000 in 2017 to $587,148 in 2026 for use of the stadium and the nearby Georgia World Congress Center, the AJC has reported.
The SEC will pay $372,948 for this year’s game at the Dome.
Victor Matheson, an expert on sports economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, cautioned that the effect of fan and other spending will be undermined if much of it flows out of Atlanta to corporate headquarters elsewhere.
But it is still an economic plus, he said.
Moreover, there are non-economic benefits: “It is fun to live in a city that has big events like this. This is unambiguously a good thing.”
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