The inaugural Atlantic Coast Conference football championship game in 2005 was a huge success as a packed stadium showed up to watch Florida State upset Virginia Tech before a prime-time national TV audience.
However, that was short lived as the ACC learned this past December. While other major conference championship games around the country were sold out - including the SEC Championship Game a few hundred miles away in Atlanta - Georgia Tech and Wake Forest played in a half-empty Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
The two teams were not the draws of a FSU, Virginia Tech, or Miami. The game was bad (Wake Forest squeezed out a 9-6 thriller) and the weather worse (rain and wind), leaving ACC officials contemplating moving the game from Jacksonville after only two years. In February, the league opted to pick up just one year of a two-year option with Jacksonville to serve as the game's host, a sign the league is ready to listen to other cities interested in the game.
With Tampa, Charlotte, N.C., Orlando and Baltimore competing for the game, Tampa is now considered Jacksonville's strongest rival at this point. Officials from those cities will be in Amelia Island at the ACC's annual spring meetings this week to gauge the league's interest. While the conference isn't expected to take official bids until after the 2007 game, the prep work has begun.
"We're just standing by waiting to see if, or when, the league sends it out to bid," said Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission. "We really enjoyed hosting the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament and we enjoy our partnership with the ACC. If anything does become available, we would love to be considered."
In March, Tampa received mostly rave reviews when the ACC's premier postseason event made a four-day stop at the St. Pete Times Forum. ACC commissioner John Swofford left town impressed, saying Tampa would be strongly considered as a future host of the tournament.
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