Editorial

College Football Cancelations And Coronavirus Could Cost The City Of Atlanta $100 Million

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David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
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College football cancelations and coronavirus might cost the city of Atlanta a staggering amount of money.

The city of Atlanta is supposed to host Chick-fil-A Kickoff Games between West Virginia/Florida State, Virginia/Georgia and Auburn/North Carolina, but nobody knows if any of those games will happen because of the coronavirus pandemic. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)

 

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Peach Bowl CEO Gary Stokan told ESPN, “If we didn’t have COVID-19, we were on our way to selling all three games out. We would have had over $100 million in economic impact and probably $7.5 million flow back into the tourism industry here locally in Atlanta. So it’s a big loss to the community if we have no games.”

 

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It might just be me, but the numbers surrounding coronavirus and college football are absolutely fascinating.

The city of Tuscaloosa is expected to lose $2 billion if Alabama doesn’t play in the fall, and Atlanta might lose $100 million over three non-conference games.

The numbers are truly staggering.

 

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While no official decisions have been made yet about these three games happening during the coronavirus pandemic, I’d bet just about anything that they don’t.

When it’s all said and done, I expect all Power Five conferences to cancel all non-conference games. I hope I’m wrong, but we already saw the Big 10 and PAC-12 both make that call.

 

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Hopefully, all three games happen because they’d all be great, but I’m mentally prepared for cancelations across the board.