Sacked! On Thursday, Atlanta to Become New Home of College Football Hall of Fame.

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., Sep. 23 2009 at 8:23 AM

Categories: Biz, Sports

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The renderings of the College Football Hall of Fame, which was to be built behind the convention center hotel

Rudy Bush has the story: The College Football Hall of Fame is indeed picking up and leaving South Bend, Indiana ... for Atlanta! But, but, but. "We would not be pursuing this unless we had a good sense from our conversations that success was possible," the mayor said in April. And what about Bob Sambol's "30-year friend[ship]" with Steve Hatchell, president and CEO of the National Football Foundation, which is the parent entity of the College Football Hall of Fame? And won't the convention center hotel be lonely?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the announcement becomes official tomorrow, and that "the museum will become a unique sports draw in a district that already includes the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, CNN Center and the anticipated Center for Human and Civil Rights. Plans for a health museum also have been announced." But what will we do with these plans?

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WOW, the number of false statements on this post! @ Chris- yes there was a serious effort to bring the CFHoF here. It was a dream of restaurateur Bob Sambol and he's the one who brought the possibility here in the first place; it was his baby. Now City officials might not have been serious, but that's another story altogether. @ GuiltyBystander- a downtown Atlanta, really? DTD has more people in it than downtown Atlanta. Maybe you're referring to Buckhead which is similar to our Uptown. No such thing as a living, breathing downtown Atlanta. Get real. @BigEdsBlog- Be honest... The population of Atlanta is 600,000. - you are referring to METRO POPULATION of Atlanta. Like saying that 6.5 million people live in the City of Dallas. They don't. Not only is the city of Dallas bigger than Atlanta, the DFW Metro is also bigger than the Atl metro. You suck at fact posting. We're going to do something different and hopefully better than the CFHoF. More details later on.
@Rain39 - you're spot on. In building the People's Hotel, Leppert appears to have been fulfilling some sort of obligation to his paymasters at Belo and Hunt (and quite possibly the secret, undisclosed prior owners of the hotel parcel who scored a massive, massive windfall)--- taking a dead, semi-worthless area of downtown and trying to make it worth something through a massive infusion of public funds (although the poor design of the People's Hotel will likely result in a failure of that mission). Leppert has commitments to fulfill... the CFHoF simply wanted the best execution of a plan (which would have placed them somewhere else in Dallas-- somewhere interesting).
It struck me as pretty ludicrous that we were offering a spot in the dead end of downtown Dallas, close to nothing but the convention center and the damned hotel. Seems like we were more concerned with filling up that area than putting our best foot forward and offering up a choice location. We deserved to lose it.
Can't we still work a deal with Atlanta? We could trade them the GWB Prez museum for the CFHoF museum. We'll even throw in W himself... Please oh please???
Ah, grasshoppah! You seek the debt nirvana! Very good, student. Say it with me: "Socialism and government contract good for fortune 500s and for media company next door to temple of forward thinking and room service! Socialism bad for poor middle class picking up trash." People of dallas have no rice? Let thdm eat debt!
What, City Hall sell a bond issue under false pretenses? Can you say Trinity River?
Atlanta is the perfect home for the Hall. The city is home to 5.5 million people and is the capital of college football. Not only does Atlanta host the SEC Championship game, the Kickoff Classic and the Chick-fil-a Bowl, it is also home to more SEC and ACC alumni than any other city. According to Gary Stokan of The Atlanta Sports Council, Atlanta has the No.1 alumni bases for all of the ACC and SEC schools, except for two [Duke and North Carolina], outside of their home markets. You can read more of my take and stick around for more good content. http://libertarianhumor.com/2009/09/23/college-football-hof/
nene and sheree will be so excited
Small potatos, EVERYONE knows it's the Smithsonian that is moving to Dallas as soon as that hotel is finished.
There are numerous reasons why Atlanta would be the choice over Dallas and there's no need to list them here. But the main reason is that Atlanta at least as uh, whatcha callit ... oh yeah, a real, living, breathing DOWNTOWN!!!!!
If you're not willing to let the College Hall of Fame go to Atlanta, then you don't want Dallas to be a world-class city.
"What is this? A center for ants? How can we be expected to teach children football history... if they can't even fit inside the building? "I don't wanna hear your excuses! The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!"
I was cruising aimlessly and ostentatiously up and down MLK today, desperately hoping someone would notice how much I want to bridge the gap, when I had one of those flashes of brilliance that just sort of come to you. Perfect, I congratulated myself, that's where we'll put the Hall of Fame we just won, right here in Fair Park! And now with the Green Line to bring folks from Southlake right to the front door, who can resist? Check off another problem solved!
Clearly this story is a typo. We approved the convention center hotel. We're obviously getting the Hall of Fame.
Isn't it funny how the College Football Hall of Fame was shown in detail in the official convention center hotel renders around the time of the vote, the only structure other than the hotel shown that way, including the convention center. It's almost as if they wanted to confuse voters into voting for the hotel thinking they were getting the Hall of Fame too. Me, I never thought we were going to get it, it was just like those solar powered water taxis, functioning levies, and bridge on-ramps, just a magicians distraction used to get what they really want passed and then dropped and forgotten once they got what they got theirs.
I call BS on the effort to actually get this in Dallas. It was all for show on the CC Hotel vote.
Screw Atlanta -- let�s build one anyway! I hear about these cool thingamajigs called �revenue bonds� where taxpayers won�t have to pay a dime!