No Football Finals for Daytona
- Thread starter peezy28
- Start date
Let's see, FHSAA wanted to be paid for the privilege of hosting and everything else. Right?
What a shame! A new venue would have been great and probably would have drawn more fans.
What a shame! A new venue would have been great and probably would have drawn more fans.
Apparently Daytona wanted to do all eight games in one weekend ( Thus-Sat ) to save money on personnel. Bad idea with two lane LPGA Blvd only way to and from stadium. IMO Orlando is the better venue for multiple games over one or two weekends.
Since FHSAA wants fans to leave and reenter after every game, trying to do all eight in one weekend would be very hard. If they had sold ticket for entry to all games, it could have worked. Traffic would be reduced also. But we all know how FHSAA resists change!
Not really... I think something like 65% if Florida's population is below the I4 line or something like that.
Ya but that's old retired folks that could care less about high school football. LOL
That is kind of a myth. A town of 2000 people may fill a stadium that seats 1500 but a town of 500,000 people will l have a lot of old folk in it sure but could probably fill a stadium that seats 40K. The numbers for the state finals were the highest when they were in Miami... Compare them to Gainseville and Tallahassee (Tallahassee had local teams playing in title games those years too).
So, south Florida teams shouldn't have to trave as far as Panhandle teams because more people live in south Florida? That logic plum evades me.
Tallahassee is a strange place, they do not support their teams. I've gone over several times to watch Niceville and Lincoln play both regular season and playoffs and I am stunned by how few people are in the stands on the Lincoln side. They have good teams and are fun to watch.
I don't think this is about what's fair or where do more people live but more about having the game in a populous area with amenities and close to the FHSAA HQ for them. They want to get the most people possible at a state title game. If the games were in Pensacola and you had not Western Panhandle teams represented and once again you have representative from "The Bottom" in every class but 1A the attendance would be horrible... The FHSAA wouldn't go for that.
The mid point between Miami and Pensacola is probably like Ocala or Gville and there are no places around there that are going to be hosting state title games (The universities do not bid on state title games anymore).
As for the last time they held the games in Miami (2006), the 8A state championship game had Miami Northwestern as they were starting their historic run. Additionally, other games that year had a 3rd installment of Lakeland and STA (as Lakeland was looking for a 3 peat). Additionally, Muck City showed out as Glades Central, Pahokee, Clewiston, and Glades Day all were playing in the first weekend of games.
Additionally only Pine Forest, Bolles, North Central Florida, and FAMU came from N of Orlando. 2 of those played in the smallest classes and are not going to bring large numbers no matter the location of the games.
Basically, what I am saying is 2006 was the perfect mix of teams to produce a historic numbers in terms of attendance.
In 2005, they had attendance of 36K, still a good number though, but the games were held in Gainesville the year before and they had 31K and they had one less classification.
-----
While I think playing in a stadium like the Citrus Bowl or in Daytona Beach will always be an awesome experience for a high schooler and the community they represent, I hope one day they move the 1A state championships to Gainesville (Citizen's Field) or Lake City or Tallahassee (Cox Stadium). I hope one day 2A is played at the home stadium of one of the football teams. I know the FHSAA won't do this because it cedes too much control and is not equitable to the small schools, but it makes more sense
Similar threads
