Georgia State Stadium Will Host GHSA Football Championships

Georgia State Stadium will be the host venue for the 2019 Georgia High School Association’s football state championship games, the school announced in a press release Tuesday. Most recently played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the slate of games come to Georgia State Stadium after concerns about facility cost and availability. Atlanta United’s MLS schedule overlap with GHSA playoffs delayed the high school games by several days, with some being played during end-of-semester instructional and testing time. According to an article published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the GHSA paid $600,000 for the privilege of hosting their championship games at the home of the Atlanta Falcons.

Georgia State Stadium’s official capacity of just over 24,000 is substantially lower than any non-high-school venue that has hosted the games, but more than adequate to host crowds which totaled approximately 45,000 across eight games last year. This capacity figure does not include any upper-deck seating which could ostensibly be made available to increase single-game capacity to around 35,000.

The stadium is no stranger to hosting guests for non-Georgia State events – The Atlanta Legends of the short-lived Alliance of American Football called Parker H “Pete” Petit Field home until the league folded midseason earlier this year. HBCU powers North Carolina A&T and Alcorn State faced off in the annual Celebration Bowl in December 2018. The Foo Fighters played the first-ever concert in the reconfigured venue in April 2018 to over 31,000 fans.  Georgia State Stadium also previously hosted some high school games in 2017 as part of the Corky Kell Classic.

The 2019 games will be played Friday and Saturday, December 13-14.

Photo Credit: Jason Getz via Georgia State Sports Communications