In the late 1990s, he’d drive from Savannah for Georgia football home games, park at a modest hotel on the edge of downtown and not touch his car again until Sunday. A room for the weekend ran under $200. Beers at the Lunch Paper bar were cheap. The Bulldogs were years removed from their ’80s glory and far from the powerhouse they’ve again become, but Kohn rarely missed a game.

Those days are gone. Fueled by coach Kirby Smart’s prolific run — two national championships and only six losses since 2021 — Athens’ roughly 2,600 hotel rooms now fill quickly on game weekends. Rates spike to several times the weekday average, with some topping $2,000 a night for marquee games like last Saturday’s loss against Alabama. Add in about 1,000 short-term rentals, and the supply still falls far short of demand.

That scarcity has forced some University of Georgia diehards to rethink fall traditions.

For years he locked in a downtown Holiday Inn room each season for about $2,400. When prices soared and the hotel was torn down, he switched to towing a camper from his southeast Georgia home. Now he pays $275 a weekend to stay in a small campground five miles from the stadium.

“I’d have to plan lodging a year in advance and set aside a budget worthy of a small family vacation to get to a decent game,” he said. “Just go with one kid and hype him up for the looming threat that is Austin Peay (State University).”

It isn’t just fans. Even visiting teams and media adjust. The UGA football team stays at the Georgia Center on campus; Alabama stayed an hour away at Chateau Elan in Braselton.

Jon Hale, a sports reporter covering Kentucky, has never stayed in Athens in seven trips. This weekend, he’ll stay in Lawrenceville and drive in Saturday morning to cover the Wildcats playing Georgia. The crowd is expected to fill Sanford Stadium, capacity 93,033, for a school record 81st consecutive home game. The last non-sellout was in 2012.

The crunch extends beyond football. Dr. Jack Crowley, former dean of UGA’s College of Environment and Design and a member of the Classic Center’s planning board, said the shortage has dogged Athens for decades but worsened as UGA teams excel across sports. The recently expanded Classic Center, now with an arena seating 8,500, draws headlining music acts, like country music star Megan Moroney earlier this year, and frequent conventions. But the lack of lodging leaves untapped tourism dollars on the table.

Boutique hotels have opened downtown in recent years, but they haven’t added significant capacity. According to Booking.com, more than 90% of Athens hotels and rentals are booked for this weekend’s homecoming game. Even next weekend, when Georgia plays at Auburn, 85% of places are already unavailable.

These days, Kohn rarely spends full weekends in Athens, and he hasn’t consistently kept his season tickets. He now lives near Charlotte and the hotel and Lunch Paper bar he used to frequent in Athens are gone.