Residents who enjoyed Super Bowl Central should expect more of the same when the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship game comes to town in January, according to the plan presented at a Wednesday morning Phoenix City Council subcommittee meeting.
Just like the Super Bowl, the College Football Playoff National Championship game will be played in Glendale, but media day — when players and coaches answer questions live — and the majority of the fan events will be hosted in downtown Phoenix.
Tom Sadler, president and CEO of the Arizona Organizing Committee, the group planning and implementing the party, presented the plan for the championship game festivities at the meeting. Most of the events and attractions will be located around the Phoenix Convention Center and US Airways Center, similar to Super Bowl Central.
That includes CFP (College Football Playoff) Fan Central, held at the Phoenix Convention Center. Other downtown events will include parties, a live concert series and a local teacher forum. Sadler compared this year’s events with earlier years in the Bowl Championship Series, the previous version of the college football championship.
“That weekend [before the game] really is a four-day celebration of college football,” Sadler said. “Very different from the BCS. That seemed to always be, there was a game and maybe some other ancillary events, but not like this.”
Media day will be incorporated into the rest of the fan festival, according to John Chan, director of the Phoenix Convention Center. Those with tickets to CFP Fan Central will be able to attend media day the Saturday before the game, he said.
Devney Preuss, Arizona Organizing Committee vice president of activation and special events, said the group looked to the 2015 championship game in Dallas and Phoenix’s Super Bowl Central to build its blueprint.
“The other portion of the overall downtown campus will be free programmatic activities from CityScape to Collier’s Center between Washington and Jefferson,” Preuss said.
The event will see the return of the liquor license area from Super Bowl Central, Preuss said, and three days of live outdoor music, compared to the two-day indoor concert in Dallas. The concert stage will feature local talent during the day but will shift to national performers at night.
“We expect numbers as large as what we saw for Super Bowl Central because of the level of talent that the College Football Playoff folks will bring for the Playoff Playlist Live concert,” she said. “In Dallas they featured Sting and Lenny Kravitz, and we’re talking a little more contemporary for our go-round.”
ESPN will host both its SportsCenter and College GameDay programs live from downtown Phoenix in the lead-up to the big game, she said.
Despite the projected numbers, questions linger about how the surge of fans will impact small businesses. District 8 Councilwoman Kate Gallego said the city received feedback from residents who felt the prominent national sponsorships at Super Bowl Central meant there were fewer opportunities to promote local establishments.
Preuss said the situation will be similar to the Super Bowl, but the organizing committee is trying to “keep the business local anywhere that we can.” Those efforts could come in the form of partnerships with tenting, event organizing and operational firms, she said.
The college football championship game won’t be the last major sporting event to follow the Super Bowl model. Phoenix is hosting an NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four game in 2017 as well, part of the city’s plan to have a continuous stream of large events.
“The Super Bowl made Phoenix shine around the world,” District 1 Councilwoman Thelda Williams said. “I am very excited to see this continue.”
Contact the reporter at travis.arbon@asu.edu.
