After much speculation, the Florida High School Athletic Association Football State Championships will remain in the Central Florida region for the next three years. The question now lies as to where in Central Florida.
Per J.C. Carnahan at the Orlando Sentinel, Daytona Beach and Orlando were the only two cities to submit bids for the Football State Championships for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Per @JCCarnz, Orlando & Daytona Beach are the only two cities to submit bids for the FHSAA State Football Championships. #flhsfb
— FloridaHSFootball.com (@FlaHSFootball) March 15, 2016
The Orlando Citrus Bowl, formerly known as the Florida Citrus Bowl has hosted the FHSAA Football State Championships since 2007 when they were moved there after two years in Miami. They would continued to be played there if the Citrus Bowl wins the bid.
However, Daytona Beach is no stranger to hosting the FHSAA State Football Championships either, having hosted the championships before at Daytona Beach Municipal Stadium in two different stints. The first stint occurred in 1989 and 1990, the first two years of the championships being hosted at a central site and with the second stint coming between 1993 until 1996.
TWITTER POLL
POLL: Where do you think the FHSAA should place the Football State Championships at? Municipal seats 10k, Citrus 70k
— FloridaHSFootball.com (@FlaHSFootball) March 15, 2016
There were reports that Florida Atlantic University in conjunction with Palm Beach County was interested in bidding, but decided to hold out until the next bidding cycle which would come no sooner than 2019.
Palm Beach County/FAU considered bidding for '16-'18 FHSAA football state championships, but have elected to wait until next cycle to bid.
— Wells Dusenbury (@DuseReport) March 14, 2016
The FHSAA wants the host to be able to have at least 10,000 seats minimum with equal seating on each side as well as seating for at least 50 in the press box area. The Citrus Bowl currently seats 70,000 while Daytona Beach Municipal seats 10,000 but can add in additional seats with temporary seating, but does have space in a multilevel press box to handle the requirements for media access.
The FHSAA plans to announced the winning bid on or before Friday May 6 with the finals being held either on the traditional two weekend option has they have been since 2005, or with the option to allow all eight classification state title games to played over a three-day, one weekend format. The date of the finals for 2016 will either be on December 2-3 and 9-10 or on December 8-10 depending on the format the FHSAA and host selected on the winning bid.
