A former general manager of the Georgia Dome and a deputy athletic director at Georgia Tech have been selected for key positions by the Atlanta organization preparing to host the 2019 Super Bowl.
The Metro Atlanta Host Committee board of directors named former long-time Dome GM Carl Adkins as executive director, the top staff position in the organization.
And it named former long-time Dallas Cowboys executive and recent Tech deputy AD Brett Daniels as chief operating officer.
Daniels resigned at Tech this week to accept the new position, Adkins said.
Adkins will serve as executive director for three mega-events coming to Atlanta over the next three years. He previously was named to the same position by the host committees for college football’s national championship game in January 2018 and the college basketball Final Four in April 2020.
Atlanta Sports Council president Dan Corso, who also is president of the board of the Super Bowl host committee, said it made sense to add the February 2019 Super Bowl to Adkins’ responsibilities because of the cross-over among the three events. Corso noted all three will be played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium and utilize many of the same ancillary venues and hotels.
Adkins’ appointment to the new position is a departure from the board’s earlier plan to seek someone without responsibilities for the other events to serve as executive director for the Super Bowl.
“We had a quality guy in Carl Adkins,” Corso said. “That’s what changed all that.”
Adkins called the additional role “a great honor.”
He became the Dome’s assistant general manager in 1995 and was its GM from 2002 until last year. On the side, he also worked as a consultant for the past 15 Super Bowls.
While much of Adkins’ focus this year will be on the college football championship game, Daniels “will be the day-to-day face” interacting with the NFL, Adkins said. Daniels spent 25 years in the Cowboys’ front office in a variety of roles before joining Tech in 2014.
Atlanta’s Super Bowl host committee also hired people for a number of other staff positions.
The hires include: Amy Patterson from the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau as director of operations; James Seagle, who has a background in public safety, as assistant director of operations; Frank Kleha, a former longtime public relations official with the Falcons, as marketing and communications manager; and Chincie Mouton, who has been working on plans for the college football title game, as project coordinator.
All begin their new jobs next week.
In addition to Corso, Atlanta’s board of directors for the 2019 Super Bowl consists of Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay, ACVB president and CEO William Pate, Georgia World Congress Center Authority executive director Frank Poe, city of Atlanta chief operating officer Dan Gordon, United Distributors president and CEO Doug Hertz and Central Atlanta Progress president A. J. Robinson.
A delegation of 12 staff and board members will travel to Houston next week to observe operations at this year’s Super Bowl.
The host committees for the college football title game, Super Bowl and Final Four are part of the Atlanta Sports Council’s new Championship Hosting Division, created to streamline efficiencies for planning and producing major sports events here.
SUPER BOWL SITES
2017: NRG Stadium, Houston
2018: U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis
2019: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta
2020: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami
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