by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
College football may have started last Thursday, but the Gator Bowl Association officially kicked its season off last night at the Crowne Plaza. GBA Chairman Scott Keith said the group is working hard to take the annual New Year’s Day game to another level.
“The national championship game is coming to Jacksonville at some point in time,” said Keith, who’s an executive with BB&T.
Keith took over for immediate-past chairman Mike Hartley right after last season’s Gator Bowl and said the job is time-consuming, but worth it.
“It’s more than I imagined when I stepped into the role, but in a good way,” he said.
With three major college football games on tap for this year — the Oct. 28 Georgia-Florida game, the Dec. 2 ACC Championship game and the Gator Bowl — the area will see a major economic impact. Keith believes that impact will be in the $90 million to $100 million range and credited past GBA chairmen for raising the level of college football in Jacksonville.
A fourth marquee match-up will be added next year when Florida State and Alabama square off Sept. 29. Gator Bowl Association President Rick Catlett said the four games next year could have a $200 million impact locally.
Other notes from the meeting:
• Players Championship Executive Director Brian Goin was elected chair-elect for the 2009 game and will succeed current chair-elect Kelly Madden of Wachovia.
• Graphic artist Kurtis Loftus once-again designed this year’s Gator Bowl poster. Loftus, who has designed them since 2003, was signing and selling prints.
• There’s a big FSU contingent among GBA execs. Madden, Keith and Gator Bowl Patch Chair Dan Deiterle are all Seminoles. “I believe our team won a little game the other night,” said Madden, referring to FSU’s win over Miami Monday night.
• Speaking of FSU, its game against Alabama here next year will have some competition for local attention. The Gators play Auburn in Gainesville the same day.
• Fidelity National has really upped the ante as far as corporations buying the Gator Bowl patches that provide discounts all over town. Last year, Fidelity bought 500 patches, this year it bought 1,000. According to Deiterle, they were bought by Fidelity employees on a first-come-first-serve basis and were gone in 45 minutes.