- FHSAA football state championship games will begin Thursday and run through Saturday with three games on each day.
- Visit Tallahassee says the expected economic impact is $11 million.
- Watch now to hear from a vendor outside Bragg Memorial Stadium speak on how helpful the extra business is.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Over the next three days, nine high school state championship games will be played here at Bragg Memorial Stadium.
That's nine groups of players, coaches, family and friends coming to College Town, especially the area around Bragg.
I'm Alberto Camargo, your neighborhood reporter.
Here's what that means for visitors, local businesses and for you.
"This is a bonus. This is a blessing by God, and we're really going to take advantage of it."
The last time I spoke to Roy Conway, I was the one breaking the news to him of these games. Now that he's had some time to prepare, I checked back in with him to see how that was coming along.
"Doubling up on conch, doubling up on shrimp, doubling up on everything we need so we can have the necessities to feed the wonderful people that's coming out of down south, Apopka, Orlando..."
Roy is ready. Here's the schedule so you can be, too:
- Beginning Thursday, three games will be played each day.
- The earliest at 10 in the morning.
- The latest at 8 in the evening.
Visit Tallahassee says it expects the greater economic impact to be in millions.
"We expect to bring in 30,000 student-athletes, coaches and fans into Leon County with an estimated impact of $11 million."
All the visitors might mean lots of traffic for drivers.
But for vendors like Conchman Conway, that's three whole days of business.
"Oh man it's going to help me. I'm a grandfather so I have five grand kids. It's going to help me tremendously, cause around these times - Thanksgiving, December - it gets slow."
Something else to keep in mind: the hard closure around the railroad tracks on Railroad Avenue started this week.
So if you're coming to Bragg, follow the detour route you see on your screen now. In Collegetown, I'm Alberto Camargo, ABC27.
