GHSA football finals at Mercedes-Benz may be in some jeopardy; seven classes & public/private split part of GHSA business; BKB finals in Macon a success

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

            The future of the GHSA state football championships at Mercedes-Benz Stadium isn’t as concrete as most think.

            And Georgia State is ready and willing if things change.

            GHSA executive director Robin Hines said the financial windfall of the 2018 championships was so low as to open up the possibility of moving to a venue that allows for greater payouts to the participating finalists.

            He said Class A teams received about $3,500, and Class 7A around $8,500.

            “Which is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “It was well beyond what the estimate was.”

Also denied a proposal for fall baseball tryouts, approved expanding the softball season to 30 games, voted down football officials changing sides for the second half.

            Hines told the spring meeting of the executive committee Monday morning at the Marriott City Center that he transferred $250,000 to supplement those payouts to the teams. The initial payouts were drastically lower than in the past because of the drastic increase in the cost of playing at Mercedes-Benz compared to the Georgia Dome.

            He said that teams in a revenue-producing sport should receive more revenue than what football teams got, and it shouldn’t be a financial loss to reach the state final.

            Hines said MBS officials replied quickly to his email regarding the situation and the future of the championships at the Benz, but he doesn’t know when he’ll have a proposal, which needs to include covering that large gap.

            Atlanta  Falcons executives who are among the stadium’s decision-makers are aware of the situation, but the GHSA is prepared to explore other singular hosts.

            Georgia State athletics director Charlie Cobb has let the GHSA know he’d like his football facility, a transformed Turner Field, to be considered as an option, Hines said.

            The two major reclassification proposals went through without a hitch. The GHSA will stay at seven classifications, and Class A’s regular-season will mirror the postseason, with private-school and public-school regions.

            That could lead to some shuffling among private schools, the concern being about private schools adhering to rules and governance – in rules and structure – of a public-school organization. Some Macon private-school officials had discussed the possibility of such a region split, and there is likely to be more talk, with returning to the GISA on the table.

            Both items cruised through Sunday’s reclassification committee meeting as well as Monday’s overall vote.

            Also part of the separation of Class A, which doesn’t take effect until 2020-21, will be the elimination of the power rating system for determining Class A playoffs.

            They passed by voice vote.

            The reclassification committee will continue working on the latest adaptation of the regular topic regarding out-of-zone students moving into a school.

            “We had three meetings that have been open, to hear all the thoughts and concerns from the membership,” said reclass committee chair Curt Miller, the athletics director for Henry County schools. “We even surveyed (members). They had that opportunity. We’ve taken some straw polls, and kind of let that guide some of our stuff.”

            He said support remained very strong to retain seven classes and for separating regions into public and private rather than mixed. Miller said meetings were well-attended, including Sunday’s sub-committee meeting at the Marriott.

            The reclassification committee will continue to meet until the executive committee’s fall meeting.

            An issue regarding eligibility of home-school students to compete for their school in whose zone they reside was early on the agenda.

            After several minutes of fairly lively discussion, with much dealing with concern that failure to adequately address it would inspire the state legislature to chime in with legislation – as well as accountability of the student for discipline and grades, etc. -  the committee voted it down 47-19.

            It’s a topic that had made the state legislature’s agenda, in the Senate, and didn’t get a vote in the House. But it will come up again.

            The basketball committee received information on adopting a 30-second shot clock, putting in the list of future topics. It voted down adding a player-control restricted arc, the half-circle near the goal to aid officials in making charge/block calls.

            The eligibility committee denied a proposal for transfer student to complete a form that included input from the student’s to-be-former principal and coach.

            Hines told the committee that the proposed budget for next year should be able match 2018-19 at $5,668,800, with - as a non-profit – expenses matching revenue.

            The GHSA’s biggest revenue-producer is “state tourneys and playoffs”, which brought in $3.11 million, 55 percent of the overall revenue for 2018-19.

            The biggest expenditure? Tourney and playoff payouts of $2.275 million, 40.1 percent. The second biggest expenditure is $1 million in catastrophic insurance, 17.6 percent.

            Salaries for the GHSA employees for 2018-19 is $950,000, a drop from $1,045,000, payroll taxes more than cut in half to $75,000. A salary schedule helped improve those numbers.

            Hines said during the meeting and afterward that the move of the entire state basketball championships to Macon was nothing but positive.

            Revenue grew by more than $50,000 with four days of basketball at the Coliseum rather over last year’s split between Macon and Georgia Tech.

            Hines said afterward that he heard nothing but positive feedback, and that the tournament in Macon again went off without a hitch. Revenue was up despite not having a Central Georgia team in either a girls or boys final, whereas in 2017-18 there were three, with the boys from Warner Robins, Upson-Lee, and Wilkinson County all winning titles, Upson-Lee doing so in Atlanta.

            Last year’s finals were split, with Macon hosting Classes 5A, AAA, AA, and A-Public on a Wednesday and Thursday, and Georgia Tech hosting Classes 7A, 6A, 4A, and A-Private on Friday and Saturday. The closest finalist this year to Macon was Spalding’s girls in Class 4A.

            “It was awesome,” Hines said. “Absolutely incredible. Can’t say enough about the management of the Macon Coliseum, and those folks, they’ve just really done a good job and we appreciate the partnership and look forward to it for years to come.”