Today’s interviewee is I.J. Rosenberg, president of Score Atlanta, a sports marketing company, and co-owner of the Corky Kell Classic. Score recently announced a partnership with CBS46/PeachtreeTV to televise 31 high school football games this season. That includes all 11 Corky Classic games this week, starting with the Mays-Cherokee game that kicks off the season statewide Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at West Forsyth on PeachtreeTV.
I.J. Rosenberg, president of Score Atlanta
1. Let’s start with the Corky Kell Classic. What game this week do you find most interesting, and why? “We had to scramble so much last year to get in just nine games at nine different locations that Dave Hunter [event co-founder and former Brookwood football coach] and I really focused on the matchups for 2021, and it’s hard for me to narrow it down to one game. On paper, I would say the Friday night meeting between Buford and North Cobb matches up what very well could be the best team for the third straight year in Class 6A in Buford and a North Cobb team that has the talent to win Class 7A. When we get to Saturday in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, we have never had five matchups in one day like we have this year. While we will have our first out-of-state team in the 30 years of Corky coming in from Alabama [Hoover] to face North Gwinnett, I have to say I am also very excited about seeing Parkview and Mill Creek play for the first time. The fact that these two Gwinnett schools have never played makes absolutely no sense considering Mill Creek has now been around since 2004. These schools are 15 miles apart and have never played in 17 years.”
2. Score will assist in the televising of 31 games on PeachtreeTV this season. Why is this significant? “It has been a few years, but when Score Atlanta was still a young company, we were brought into Georgia Public Broadcasting to take their high school sports to another level. First, we put Corky Kell on GPB. Then we changed the way they were doing the state championships by keeping the broadcast (halftime and between games) at the stadium and finally put in a game of the week. GPB has done a great job maintaining their weekly games, and the state championships, but I always wanted to do a game of the week that focused on the entire state. We are going to be all across Georgia, not only in the regular season, but we will be doing four playoff games like we did last year. In our own way, we are going to treat every Friday night like ESPN does Gameday.”
3. Where can fans find the schedule of televised games, and will everyone in the state be able to see the games? “There are 12 weeks in the regular season, and Corky takes the first one. Then we will produce the Great Atlanta Bash at Midtown High School [formerly Grady] before starting our Friday night schedule on week No. 3. Beginning this afternoon, the best place to check out the schedule will be ScoreATL.com as well as this newsletter. As far as who will get to see the games, they will all be available on PeachtreeTV, which hits 2.65 million homes in the metro Atlanta area, reaching more than 60 counties. Digitally, everyone will be able to watch on the CBS46 app and the National Federation High School Network.”
4. What are some of the games on the schedule that you’re most excited about? “The night before Georgia plays Clemson, we will have Bulldogs signee and five-star quarterback Gunner Stockton and Class 2A Rabun County visit Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy. ELCA, a Class A Private powerhouse, recently went down to Lowndes and knocked off the big Class 7A school in a scrimmage. We are not scared to televise the smaller classifications. We learned that when we went to Prince Avenue Christian last year and televised a playoff game. Then the following week we will see Collins Hill, who has what many consider is the best player in the country in Travis Hunter, play at Rome, a top Class 6A school. Then we come back to metro Atlanta for two Class 7A heavyweights when Parkview travels to Marietta. But the game I worked the hardest to get will be played the fourth week when we go down to Warner Robins to see them host Lee County. It took me six weeks to talk the school officials in Warner Robins to let us come down, and you very well may see the best team in Class 6A playing the best in 5A. We have other games we are focused on like Blessed Trinity-Calhoun [Oct. 8], Walton-North Cobb [Oct. 15] and Roswell-Milton [Oct. 22] and will make announcements of new games very soon. With COVID being so tough on these schools and players, I am excited that high school football fans across the state will be able to watch two TV games of the week for the regular season and playoffs and support these young athletes.”
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