Atlanta, which hosts Saturday’s Peach Bowl, has quietly become hugely important to the college sports world.
This year the Big Peach is hosting the College Football Playoff semifinal, between top-seeded Georgia, based in nearby Athens, and Ohio State.
- In 2025, it will become the first repeat host of the CFP Championship, after hosting the final of the 2017 season. Georgia lost that game, but won last year’s championship in Indianapolis.
- Peach Bowl organizers estimate that the event and Chick-fil-A Kickoff games have brought in $80 million in tax revenue from 1999 to 2021.
- The Peach Bowl began in 1968 and moved to the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018. The $1.8 billion venue was the site of Super Bowl LIII in 2019.
The College Football Hall of Fame has also moved to Atlanta from South Bend, Indiana.
Sports Smorgasbord
Atlanta is one of a handful of cities to have an NFL, MLB, NBA, MLS, and WNBA team. The city also had an NHL team from 1999-2011.
It will be one of 16 North American host cities for the 2026 World Cup.
The city is a contender to add an NWSL team in 2024, when the league is expected to add two new teams. Salt Lake City is likely to regain a team, after losing one the Utah Royals in 2020. Austin, Cincinnati, and Toronto are also thought to be interested.
