On Thursday in Fort Collins, CHSAA announced the state championship football games for Class 5A and 4A are moving from Empower Field to Canvas Stadium starting this year and that the Class 3A title will also move there in 2024.
In an interview with The Denver Post, CHSAA commissioner Michael Krueger said moving the games to Fort Collins was “a financially responsible decision for our membership.”
“As we looked at all the factors as our lease expired with Empower Field, it would be unrealistic for us to not consider the financial implications that the move would have on CHSAA,” Krueger said. “This move will have a substantial impact relative to the association’s financial considerations.”
Krueger declined to talk financial specifics, but revenue numbers from the history of “Championship Saturday” at Mile High provided to The Denver Post by the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame indicates CHSAA’s earning potential off the games was limited, especially compared to what the association expects to make in profit off the games at Canvas.
The association could see as much as a $100,000 annual revenue increase by moving the games to CSU, a source familiar with the contracts said.
The Hall was the official host of the championship games over the duration of two nine-year deals dating back to the first year the games were held at Mile High in 2005. The cost for renting and staffing Empower Field for the day tallied over $100,000, according to sources familiar with the agreement, and while the Hall covered 100% of game-day expenses, it also received 100% of the ticket revenue.
That means that even though football is CHSAA’s third-biggest state tournament moneymaker behind wrestling and basketball, the association wasn’t seeing very much profit from the 5A and 4A games at Empower Field relative to the ticket revenues they were generating. CHSAA made an average of $62,000 per year over 17 of the 18 years the games were played at Empower (in 2020, all classes played their title games in Pueblo due to COVID). In the most recent nine-year agreement, CHSAA’s revenues were capped at $60,000 each year.
Hall President and CEO Tom Lawrence said all net revenues that the Hall received from the event were donated to local youth sports organizations. The Hall made $18,000 off the games in 2022 and $62,000 in 2021 following the COVID-affected 2020 season, and an average of $38,500 annually over the most recent nine-year contract.
Krueger said there are no hard feelings between CHSAA, the Hall and the Broncos upon leaving Empower Field, calling it a “business decision” for the association.
“We’ve appreciated the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame’s promotion of the games,” Krueger said. “We’re incredibly grateful to both the Hall of Fame and the Broncos for helping us build memories for our student-athletes in an NFL stadium. But when we looked at the whole package, it made a lot of sense for us to work with CSU.”
Krueger emphasized that while money played a role, “it wasn’t the only driving factor” for moving the games up north. The commissioner said CHSAA sees partnering with a university as “a huge upside,” and that he doesn’t see the stadium’s proximity (about an hour drive from the Denver metro area) as an issue as far as fan turnout.
“We didn’t hesitate relative to the location being in Fort Collins,” Krueger said. “And we think it’s an awesome opportunity to be on a really cool college campus.”
The Canvas Stadium agreement is a five-year deal that runs through 2027. The small-school titles (6-man through 2A) will continue to be hosted at the CSU-Pueblo ThunderBowl on the final Saturday of November, a deal that runs on a concurrent timeline as the Canvas deal. Class 3A will play at the ThunderBowl one more time this year before moving to Canvas, joining 5A and 4A in Fort Collins on the first Saturday of December.
The 2023 football season opens on Aug. 24, with the 5A, 4A and 3A title games scheduled for Dec. 2.
