Gary Stokan still remembers the vision. About five years ago, he had an idea for another bowl game - one that would be unlike anything college football had ever seen before. With a schedule that featured a slew of nondescript games at the beginning of the season, Stokan envisioned a game that could emulate what the National Football League (NFL) did to kick off its season.

The premise was simple. Why not start a BCS-type game at the front end of the season? Stokan certainly was adept at the whole bowl game premise. As president of the Atlanta Sports Council, he played an integral role in transforming the Chick-fil-A Bowl (formerly known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl) into a prominent ACC/SEC bowl match up with 12 consecutive sell-outs.

But this time, Stokan's vision was more than a game. He wanted it to be an event - 48 hours of college football madness, culminating with a game that would not only get college football fans ready for the upcoming season, but also continue to cement Atlanta as the epicenter of college football. After originally approaching Big Ten officials about facing an ACC opponent, Stokan settled on the ACC vs. SEC match up. Last year, the Clemson Tigers squared off against the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Georgia Dome. ESPN immediately began branding the game as the Chick-fil-A Kick Off. This year, Virginia Tech and Alabama carried on the tradition.

Sporting one of the best college football areas in the country is one thing from a fan perspective, but it is what it does on the economic side that makes it so impressive - and, one might say, envious in scale. Take a look at some of the numbers. In 2008, the Chick-fil-A Kick Off Game, the SEC Football Championship, the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the Bank of America Atlanta Football Classic pumped $125 million of economic impact into Atlanta's economy. In 2009, the Chick-fil-A Kick Off Game and Chick-fil-A Bowl (for economic impact, Stokan also adds the ACC Men's College Basketball Tournament) is projected to pump more than $95 million into Atlanta's economy, including $3-4 million in government taxes.

With the support of area business leaders, school administrators, staff and media outlets, Stokan, an ex-player and coach at North Carolina State and former sports marketing executive at adidas and Converse, is turning Atlanta into college football central. Since 1999, under Stokan's supervision, the Atlanta Sports Council is partially responsible for helping drive more than $1.6 billion into Atlanta's economy.

"Yes, you could say that college football is big business here," says Stokan, who also is the president and CEO of the Chick-fil-A Bowl. "My belief is that Atlanta is the heartbeat of college football. Whether you look at Georgia and Georgia Tech playing here, and soon Georgia State; whether you look at the historical black colleges that play here; or whether you look at the advertising and marketing support from businesses like AFLAC, Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola, NAPA Auto Parts, there is not a football game on Thursday or Saturday that doesn't have an Atlanta presence. Whether it's the TV ratings or the melting pot of fans this city has supporting college football programs from around the country, Atlanta has it all."

Take one of college football's most revered conferences, the SEC. As Florida coach Urban Meyer once said: "We get up every morning and shave and brush our teeth with the intent of trying to get to Atlanta."

To Meyer's point, Atlanta is the crux of the SEC - a destination that's drivable from all 12 cities within the conference. In addition, each team has a booster club presence here - large ones. For example, the Atlanta Gator Club has more than 3,000 members, the largest contingency outside the state of Florida; while the Alabama Alumni and Booster Club of Atlanta is one of that school's biggest.

You Have to be 'Luckie', Too

Enormous booster clubs. Crowded hotels. Long waits for restaurants. These are the kinds of things that put a smile on the face of David Marvin, founder and president of the Legacy Property Group. Legacy is one of the drivers behind the downtown area's renovation - a resurgence that includes the Luckie Marietta District. The area is home to the Georgia Aquarium, Centennial Olympic Park, CNN Center and Philips Arena, the Omni Hotel, Hilton Garden Inn and Embassy Suites, as well as restaurant and retail destinations like Legal Sea Foods, Ruth's Chris, Cigar Times and STATS, which is, what else, one of the city's most popular sports bars.

"The economic synergy between downtown Atlanta and college football continues to build," says Marvin, who since 1994 has poured more than $250 million worth of development into the downtown area and projects to invest more than $500 million in future projects. "As to what this means economically, I'm not sure I can put a dollar figure on it, except to say that our businesses do significantly well during football season, especially our hotels and restaurants. Downtown and college football are really joined at the hip. It's another cylinder for Atlanta to fire on.

"On a daily basis, the downtown Atlanta area entertains more than 200,000 employees, students, visitors and conventioneers - almost half of the city's entire population, says A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District. "That's a diversity of interests. So when you add college football into the mix in a more in-depth way, it just works to broaden our attractions' mix."

Stokan likes to refer to this mix as Atlanta's Disneyworld. "Between the Aquarium, the World of Coke, the Civil and Human Rights Center and the recently announced College Football of Hall of Fame, we have now created our version of Disneyworld - a one-stop shop, for not only conventioneers, but for their families, too."

What will this collection of attractions mean to Atlanta? Deloitte & Touche is in the final stages of a report that will detail the projected economic impact - including job creation. As BtoB went to press, the study was not yet completed. "We used to be a convention business town, a Fortune 500 town," Stokan says. "What we have done now is combine all those assets together. We've combined the Fortune 500 companies that now spend money in college sports, many of which we hope will partner with us as we develop the College Football Hall of Fame and link them with the conventioneers to drive Atlanta's tourism industry."


Atlanta's Businesses Deliver

Each Saturday morning, as throngs of college football fans prepare for their football bonanzas across the country, ESPN's College GameDay helps fuel the excitement. Since 2003, the program's title sponsor has been The Home Depot, which uses the partnership in a number of obvious and unique ways, says Christi Korzekwa, the company's senior director of marketing.

"We fully leverage our sponsorship with a 360-degree marketing approach, including, market-driving store events, TV and online creative featuring College GameDay talents Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Chris Fowler and Desmond Howard," she says. "The sponsorship is meaningful to us as it connects well with our key demographic, adults 25-54. The Home Depot brand is top of mind on Saturday mornings, leaving fans time to head to their local Home Depot to get their weekend projects completed."

Home Depot, which does not disclose its sports advertising budget, also leverages vendor partnerships in the sponsorships, including Glidden Team Colors paint, Kingsford Charcoal and Ryobi tools. The fans can benefit, too. The National Kids Workshop clinics feature College GameDay Built by The Home Depot tailgate toss kits and a national promotion where fans can win a trip to the Rose Bowl.

"Each year we run different promotions that help drive our key objectives," Korzekwa says. "We feel our partnership with ESPN is extremely important to our customers and associates. We are currently promoting energy saving products with Lee Corso and Chris Fowler, as well as our new low pricing campaign with Kirk Herbstreit on ESPN.com. Our TV spot with the College GameDay talent promotes some of our innovative products like the Ryobi paint sprayer."

Chick-fil-A also has a presence on ESPN College GameDay, thanks to the show's Mascot Movers segment. Toward the end of each show, Lee Corso predicts the winning team by donning a mascot head - sponsored by Chick-fil-A. Steve Robinson, senior vice president of marketing at Chick-fil-A, says the sponsorship, along with its other sports-related marketing initiatives, reflects one of the company's most important core values: "to make a positive impact on our communities and the people in them."

At Chick-fil-A, sponsorships are more than just the game. For example, over the 41-year history of the bowl, the company has disbursed more than $90 million in team payouts. In 2007, the company gave more than $1.2 million in charitable and scholarship contributions to competing teams. "[Our] aggressive marketing approach is designed to remind our customers what they love about the Chick-fil-A brand," Robinson says. "While other companies are taking a more conservative approach to marketing [in an economy like this], we feel the need to be more aggressive than ever.  We are on a pace to have one of our most aggressive marketing years in the chain's history."

Aaron's Inc. is another Atlanta-based company that believes in the marketing benefits of sports. Mark Rudnick, vice president of marketing, says the company has increased spending in this area by 10 percent this year. "Aaron's is involved with college football in Atlanta because our customers love watching sports," he says "We develop sports partnerships where our customers will see Aaron's either on TV with the Georgia Tech partnership or hear us on the radio during the games."


Riding the Triple Option

From his office on the campus of Georgia Tech, Dan Radakovich has a pretty unique view of what it's like to oversee a sports program on an urban campus. The former senior associate athletics director at Louisiana State University is just the seventh director of athletics in Tech history, joining the likes of John Heisman, Bobby Dodd and Homer Rice.

After nearly 20 years in collegiate athletics management positions, Radakovich joined the Yellow Jackets as they prepared for battle against Notre Dame in a nationally televised contest on ABC in 2006. Welcome to Atlanta. "The energy, the excitement was really something," he recalls. "Being an urban campus [in the Midtown area], we don't get a whole lot of people who just drop by. Football allows us to bring more people here - not just alumni, but people from around the Atlanta area that might not typically visit us."

Radakovich says that some of Atlanta's best marketing opportunities come when those ABC and ESPN cameras pan the skyline views that surround the Georgia Tech campus. "What the world can see is that we have a great campus. It's a little bit of an oasis."

Georgia Tech officials say that the football program generates around $29 million, thanks in part to ACC Conference TV shares, bowl revenues, ticket sales, suite and premium seat leases, donations and corporate sales. "Each school, and I have worked at South Carolina and LSU, has a way to create excitement. We have a unique level of excitement here - one that features great views wherever you sit. When you look at what Atlanta has to offer in the way of college football, I really can't think of another place like it."


Like A Super Bowl Six Times a Year

Just east of Atlanta lies Clarke County, home to the University of Georgia. Six times during the fall, more than 92,000 football fans cram Sanford Stadium to root on their Bulldogs. School officials estimate that another 20,000-30,000 fans jam the streets, bars and outlying areas. The scene is as big as you would imagine - a party so large in scope that UGA Athletic Director Damon Evans says it's like hosting a Super Bowl six times a year.

"I have heard it said that the city of Athens' population doubles, and in some cases, triples on game day," Evans says. "The restaurants and vendors say that those six times of year are the busiest they have. While we are not-for-profit and are part of an educational system, we can't hide the fact that football is big business. A football game at the University of Georgia touches everybody. How much? If we went from six football games a year to four, you'd definitely hear en mass from the business leaders in this community."

The Bulldogs are one of Athens's biggest industries. According to some estimates, the program generates more than $67 million in revenues for the school and surrounding community, including TV and radio contracts (the SEC recently inked a 15-year, $2.25 billion contract with ESPN, which coincides with a 15-year, $825 million deal with CBS) and a merchandising deal with Nike (a 10-year contract that includes an estimated $2 million annually in cash and products).

UGA also recently signed a marketing and media rights contract with ISP Sports. The blockbuster 10-year package guarantees the Bulldogs between $9 and $10 million annually. Evans says the deal could net nearly $93 million when it's all said and done. The package helps put Georgia in a similar revenue class with Florida and Texas and make UGA's contract among ISP's most lucrative deals.

Game weekends certainly keep the Athens Convention & Visitors Bureau busy. The site houses a special Web site that provides travel information and assistance, including tracking last-minute hotel room availability, parking and tailgating information, and events and attractions.


Here Come the Panthers

When Kosha Irby, the senior associate athletics director for the Georgia State Panthers, thinks about that first kick off, Sept. 2, 2010, against Shorter College, he can only imagine the possibilities: more than 110,000 alumni, a packed Georgia Dome sporting the Panthers new logo and new Head Coach Bill Curry.

But before that can happen, there is work to do. Irby says Georgia State officials continue to shore up ticket sales, TV contracts, radio agreements and merchandising opportunities.

According to a 2007 feasibility study conducted by Georgia State, the cost to add the football program is estimated between $6.2 million and $24.8 million. The report recommended that Georgia State increase student athletic fees by $200 (from $284 to $484) to generate $5.2 million (using 26,000 students as the base) toward the costs and to seek the additional funds from alumni, donors and the university, while pursuing the other possible revenue streams.

"It's all about getting the program started right now," he says. "There are many opportunities we are still identifying. Right now, we have companies talking with us that wouldn't in years past. And now, they're calling us."

While Irby could not comment on the proposed economic impact the football program will generate (university officials are still conducting a feasibility study), the opportunities are plentiful. "Our goal is to make a positive impact in the downtown community and economy. With six or seven home games scheduled, we're going to try and bring as many people as we can downtown, people who may have never come downtown on a Saturday before. Understanding the economy and the business of college football, we are going to ride this train."

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The Crowning Jewel
The College Football Hall of Fame's relocation to Atlanta helps cement the city's grip on all things football.

It's a shrine in more ways than Atlanta business leaders and fans realize. The College Football Hall of Fame's $50 million home will open in Atlanta's growing downtown area in 2012, adding what many football pundits call the crowning jewel in the city's college football frenzied culture.

Established in 1951, the Hall has called South Bend, Ind., home since 1995. But a lack of attendance forced the board of directors of the National Football Foundation to examine other options. Enter Atlanta, where convention traffic - which tallies more than five million annual visitors - is projected to bolster attendance and ensure its long-term growth and prosperity.

The 50,000-square foot structure will be adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park, serving as a neighbor to the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, Children's Museum and the future Center for Civil & Human Rights.

And thanks to a new partnership between the NFF and the Chick-fil-A Bowl, the Hall will be operated locally by the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which along with its corporate partner, Chick-fil-A, each committed $5 million to the facility.

Chick-fil-A Bowl President and CEO Gary Stokan says the Hall will be more than just a shrine to past collegiate greats. The foundation plans to enlarge its role in promoting the student-athlete and positive role models in amateur athletics. Foundation officials also plan to expand the Hall's high school scholarship program.

In other hall of fame news, a coalition including former NFL quarterbacks Doug Williams and James "Shack" Harris are forming a Black College Football Hall of Fame, which will enshrine its first class, Feb. 20, 2010, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta. The ceremonies will be held in conjunction with Black History Month. The vision of the Hall of Fame, according to officials, is to "preserve the legacy and history of historically black colleges and universities."

As officials explore areas for a permanent home, the Black College Football Hall of Fame initially will operate as a traveling exhibit in Atlanta, and Stokan says it could even find a temporary home in the College Football of Fame.