Record crowd for HS title games at Cowboys Stadium could mean $1 million playoff payoff
12:51 AM CST on Friday, December 17, 2010
By CORBETT SMITH / The Dallas Morning News
High school football playoffs provide a lifetime of memories for fans across the state. But for the University Interscholastic League, the six-week path to crowning a champion is a million-dollar business.
Although some coaches oppose the setup, the UIL is hosting this year's state championship games in a central location for the first time – 10 games at Cowboys Stadium and Mansfield's Vernon Newsom Stadium.
The UIL hopes the new setup will draw the largest crowd ever to see a high school football game in Texas.
Sterling matchups – featuring undefeated teams, repeat champions, star recruits and four Dallas-Fort Worth-area teams in the largest four classes – mean the UIL stands to gain a windfall, in both revenue and exposure.
"In Texas, football is huge," UIL athletic director Cliff Odenwald said. "Just to have the ability to create an additional fan base and additional attendance ... that's the advantage we receive by having them at a predetermined site."
The championships are the finale for one of the largest revenue sources for the UIL: the football playoffs.
The UIL gets 15 percent of the gate receipts for each playoff game across the state, large or small.
And games equal dollars for the UIL.
Although financial records have not been released for the 2009-10 fiscal year, the UIL's take of playoff gate receipts has averaged $1.16 million per year over the past five seasons.
Gate receipts for the playoffs account for about 10 percent of the UIL's revenue, with little overhead – primarily trophies, medals and administrative costs.
Since 2006, the UIL's playoff format has consisted of 12 championship brackets – two in each of the five 11-man enrollment classifications, and two in six-man.
That represents a huge expansion of both the number of teams that qualify for the playoffs and the number of champions crowned over the last 30 years.
Including the state championships, 594 playoff games will be played in Texas this season. In 1981, the last season in which only district champions advanced to the playoffs and only six champs were crowned, 130 playoff games were played.
Although the number of games has exploded, the popularity of the state championships hasn't necessarily increased.
The UIL has held the largest of its games, Class 5A Divisions I and II, at a predetermined location since 2006. Attendance for those games has largely been dependent on whether a local team is involved.
The 2009 5A Division I game between state powers Euless Trinity and Austin Westlake, played on a Saturday afternoon at San Antonio's Alamodome, had fewer than 9,000 in paid attendance, according to UIL figures.
In 2008, when Houston-area schools Katy and Fort Bend Hightower played in Houston's Reliant Stadium, the estimated combined attendance for two games was approximately 50,000. The UIL does not take official attendance figures.
Central site
UIL officials hope that playing in a predetermined location, as they do with all other sports, will create a robust walk-up crowd from football fans with no allegiance to the teams involved, much like popular events such as the UIL's boys state basketball tournament, held at Austin's Erwin Center every year.
"It really raises the profile of those sports to have them played at a single site," said Frisco ISD Superintendent Rick Reedy, a member of the UIL's Legislative Council.
But the decision for a central location isn't just about building a fan base. Another key factor is television.
Fox Sports Southwest and Fox Sports Houston will broadcast all of the games at Cowboys Stadium live, and the games in Mansfield will have a live webcast. Last weekend, the 3A Division I championship at Cowboys Stadium and the six-man championships in Abilene were broadcast on the Web.
The logistics of setting up television crews across the state in seven or eight locales was just unfeasible, said Odenwald.
"In the past, at best, it could be broadcast locally," Odenwald said. "Now, it can be broadcast statewide and, really, nationally."
Regardless of the rationale behind it, some school officials and coaches from 4A-sized schools and smaller aren't enthusiastic about the new arrangement.
For coaches, the decision takes out of their hands the decision on where games will be played.
"It's very unfair," La Marque head coach Darrell Jordan said. "To me, how can the UIL dictate where we play?"
Jordan, who coached at Kimball for seven seasons before becoming the La Marque head coach in 2008, said his team is at a distinct disadvantage having to travel to Arlington, especially considering that there will be no walk-throughs at Cowboys Stadium.
"I know [the UIL] set it up, and I'm glad to be playing, but for one team to have to go 41/2 hours to play, and the other one [Aledo] to have to drive 35 miles, how fair is that to me, for my kids?"
Three schools – La Marque, Idalou and Falls City – will travel 290 miles or more under the new plan.
Travel like that is a financial burden, especially when bringing the band, drill team and cheerleaders.
When Cedar Hill traveled to San Antonio in 2006 for one of the first 5A championships at a predetermined location, the school spent about $16,000 on eight charter buses and $4,000 in hotel rooms for the players.
Travel expenses
Falls City, about 45 miles southeast of San Antonio, felt the pinch of having to travel for tonight's game.
The smallest high school in this season's championships, with 120 students, Falls City relied on the largesse of its community to cover the expected $7,000 cost for charter buses, hotels and food, Superintendent Linda Bettin said.
Still, there are no guarantees that teams will always have to travel to North Texas.
The UIL hasn't decided on future years' sites, but the current stadium requirements (drawn up while Texas Stadium was still in existence) stipulate that the large-school games be played in a semi-covered stadium. That limits the possible alternate venues to San Antonio's Alamodome and Houston's Reliant Stadium and Astrodome.
Cowboys spokesman Brett Daniels said the stadium expects at least 60,000 fans to walk through the turnstiles Saturday. The UIL hopes to break the all-time attendance record for a single game – unofficially, of course.
The paid attendance for the Plano vs. Port Neches-Groves 4A championship game in 1977 at Texas Stadium was 49,953, the state's record.
If the Class 3A Division I championship between Henderson and Tyler Chapel Hill is any indication, that record just might be toppled.
Announced attendance at that game was 20,560, from two schools located about 35 miles apart from each other, but at least two hours away from Cowboys Stadium.
Three games on Saturday have area schools less than an hour's drive away: Denton Guyer and Denton Ryan are at most 40 miles away, and national No. 1 Euless Trinity's campus is seven miles from Cowboys Stadium.
It could be a million-dollar end to the million-dollar road.
With tickets at $15, if attendance reaches 66,667 for the day, that equates to $1 million in ticket sales.
"Playing in a state championship anywhere is an opportunity of a lifetime," Odenwald said. "But to also have the ability to play in a venue such as Cowboys Stadium makes it even more memorable."
COWBOYS STADIUM
Capacity: 111,947
Staffing for Saturday's games: about 1,500
Saturday's ticket: $15
Parking: $10, $3 of which goes to the city of Arlington's bond payments on the stadium
Concessions: Proceeds go to the Dallas Cowboys.
At a glance: UIL revenue sources
The University Interscholastic League's 10 largest sources of revenue:
Texas Education Agency grant: $3 million
Membership fees: $1,584,609
Football playoffs: $1,169,210
Boys state basketball tournament ticket sales: $968,775
Girls state basketball tournament ticket sales: $478,850
Corporate sponsor donations: $386,988
Texas State Solo-Ensemble Music contest entry fees: $240,600
Broadcasting: $230,000
State track and field event: $208,516
State baseball tournament ticket sales: $187,591
SOURCE: UIL's 2008-09 annual financial report
Distances from participating high schools to Cowboys Stadium:
5A Division I: Euless Trinity 7; Pearland 275
5A Division II: Denton Guyer 37; Cibolo Steele 262
4A Division I: Denton Ryan 40; Lake Travis 211
4A Division II: Aledo 33; La Marque 295
3A Division II: Carthage 177; Coldspring-Oakhurst 224
Distances from participating high schools to Mansfield's Vernon Newsom Stadium:
2A Division I: Daingerfield 164; Cameron Yoe 137
2A Division II: Lexington 172; Idalou 302
A Division I: Mart 102; Goldthwaite 148
A Division II: Windthorst 117; Falls City 284
