Craven: In light of Dallas Morning News report, AT&T Stadium the best fit for title games

A report by the Dallas Morning News’ Corbett Smith solidified one thing we already knew: Houston was a costly host site for the UIL State Football Championships. In the report, Smith outlines the loss of money from host fees to attendance. Houston flopped, we knew that, and it went beyond dollars. The UIL knew it would lose money when it was forced out of AT&T Stadium in Arlington due to a scheduling conflict with the NFL. As Smith lined out, the UIL planned to use its one-year option with AT&T. Even when teams from the Austin and Houston area qualified for some of the big classification title games, it was doomed to not repeat the success Arlington built over the previous years. It isn’t because Houston is less preferable as a city than Arlington. If convenience was the sticking point, San Antonio would win out. That city is built to host localized events. No, North Texas wins out because of the “wow” factor associated with Jerry World. Teams want to play there. Fans want to attend a game and look at that mega-screen for less than $500 a ticket plus $100 for parking. It is the experience in Dallas that brings out the random fans. Parents, hardcore high school fans and students of the qualifying schools will always show up in droves to watch their team play for the state’s biggest crown. It’s the indifferent alumni or the patrons from the surrounding areas that inflated the numbers at AT&T. My old high school buddies attended the Cedar Park vs. Lancaster game at AT&T in 2012 and Cedar Park vs. Ennis in 2014. They were able to watch their old high school team at a billion-dollar stadium with a world-famous big screen television for $20 and some parking. Those same buddies stayed at home to watch Cedar Park vs. Frisco Lone Star this season. The drive was the same. The price was the same. The prize for their school was the same. The stadium was different. A rotation between San Antonio, Arlington and Houston would be the fairest way to host the state championships. Smith noted this is a possibility in his piece. A set schedule would allow San Antonio and Houston to help build buzz and excitement inside the city to help off-set the lower attendance numbers. Those numbers will never reach AT&T numbers, but it will grow, as it did in Arlington, if Houston and San Antonio gets the games routinely. AT&T is the sure-fire way to ensure attendance numbers and the experience that the UIL wants. We may all want to start booking our hotels right now.