The Georgia High School Association’s state championship football games will return to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2023.
The GHSA and the Falcons announced a three-year deal Thursday that will return the games to the indoor facility.
“We are pleased to have the championship back here,” Falcons President Rich McKay said. “We want to have the championships here. There’s a lot of requirements that go into trying to schedule these games, but I think we’ve got ourselves in a good place.”
McKay said he knew the matter was important when Falcons owner Arthur Blank called and asked him, “Why aren’t they here?”
The games will be played on weekdays in 2023, tentatively Dec. 12-14, a Tuesday-Thursday, after the facility hosts the SEC Championship game Dec. 2. The state championship games were moved to weekdays in 2018 to accommodate Atlanta United’s playoff game.
“It’s nice to be able to have these things planned and not worry about the weather,” GHSA executive director Robin Hines said. “We’re excited to be able to come back to Mercedes-Benz. We enjoy a great relationship with the Falcons. We have never stopped talking about our return eventually to here, and the time is right now. We’re grateful for them being able to work with us so we can make that happen.”
The games were played the past four years at Center Parc Stadium. But patrons grumbled about the unpredictable weather. Hines and McKay were gracious in their praise of Georgia State for hosting the games.
Hines said in October that the GHSA was negotiating with the Falcons to return the games to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The state championship games for all classifications have been played in Atlanta since 2008. They were conducted at the Georgia Dome from 2008-16 and moved to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for 2017-18.
Attendance for last week’s championship games at Center Parc was 34,653. The attendance for the last season at Mercedes-Benz was 40,462 in 2018.
Hines also said the GHSA board of trustees will discuss the matter of instant replay at its next meeting.
“We want all calls to be right,” he said. “The current rules at the Georgia High School Association do not allow for judgment calls to be reversed or reviewed. But we’ve already had many conversations. There’s many things that go into a video review. Operationally, how does it go? What are the angles? Do you have the technology to do that? We feel like we have that option in championship games here at Mercedes-Benz. … So we are going to take a look and feel like we have to look at replay when it’s feasible and the technology exists.”
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