Atlanta added another neutral-site college-football game to its lineup Wednesday with the announcement that the annual MEAC/SWAC Challenge will be played at Georgia State Stadium beginning this year.
The event, entering its 14th season, is an early-season matchup of teams from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference. This year’s matchup will feature the MEAC’s North Carolina Central vs. the SWAC’s Prairie View A&M on Sept. 2, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, in the stadium formerly known as Turner Field.
A three-year contract also calls for the event to be played there in 2019 and 2020.
The move to Atlanta puts the MEAC/SWAC Challenge in the same city as the end-of-season Celebration Bowl, which matches the MEAC and SWAC champions. The 2018 Celebration Bowl will be played Dec. 15 in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“In addition to being a hotbed for college football fandom, Atlanta is a culturally diverse city, with a rich history of HBCU education and excellence,” John Grant, ESPN Events’ executive director of the Celebration Bowl, said in a news release. “To begin the HBCU football season in the same city it concludes in will give fans two vibrant touchpoints for the excitement and pageantry of these matchups.”
Other neutral-site college-football games played annually in Atlanta are the Chick-fil-A Kickoff, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the SEC Championship game.
The MEAC/SWAC Challenge, owned and operated by ESPN Events, has been held annually since 2005. It was played in Birmingham from 2005-07, in Orlando from 2008-15 and at campus sites the past two years
The North Carolina Central-Prairie View A&M game will be televised on ESPN2.
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