December 8, 2022 – The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) and their Board of Directors announced that the IHSA State Football Championships will move to Bloomington-Normal after nearly 20 years of hosting at the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium.
“Today’s news is a letdown that we were not selected to continue hosting the IHSA State Football Championships,” states Jayne DeLuce, President & CEO of Visit Champaign County. “Just 2 weeks ago on November 25-26, we hosted a highly successful IHSA Football weekend with over 20,000 fans in attendance, many of whom complimented our amazing venue, plus Tent City, community hosts, caterers, police escorts, stadium staff, and everyone involved in rolling out the orange and blue carpet.”
“We are very disappointed with today’s news, which ends our longstanding history of hosting the IHSA Football State Championship games at Memorial Stadium. We believe Memorial Stadium is the most iconic football stadium in Illinois and offers the state’s premier experience for high school student-athletes and coaches, along with the fans and media who attend and cover the championships,“ states Josh Whitman, Director of Athletics for the University of Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics. “The IHSA sought a single venue to host the championships for the foreseeable future, and we engaged them in multiple discussions to brainstorm creative ways we might be able to accommodate that in Memorial Stadium, even in years when our Fighting Illini team had a home game to conclude the season. The University of Illinois, the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, and the Champaign-Urbana communities have a strong, enduring relationship with the IHSA, and we look forward to continuing to host the boys’ basketball and wrestling championship events at State Farm Center. We will also look to pursue other IHSA championship events if and when appropriate.”
“There is no bigger fan of Illinois high school football than me and our staff here at Illinois,” says Fighting Illini Football Head Coach, Bret Bielema. “We have established since Day 1 that recruiting and developing in-state players would be a huge priority for building our program and our foundation. I understand this decision has been thoroughly processed and, of course, would have liked a different answer, but it’s where they stand today. In this ever changing world of college football and scheduling, maybe a return to Memorial Stadium could be addressed in the near future.”
The IHSA opened up the football championships for bid to seek a host that could hold the event every year. Due to the Big Ten schedule, Memorial Stadium is only able to host the championships in even numbered years while the Fighting Illini Football team has an away game. Knowing that the University of Illinois could only host every other year, Visit Champaign County in conjunction with the University of Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, still put forth a compelling bid package to extend the contract for even years with the hope of alternating with another community as it does now with DeKalb and Northern Illinois University.
The bid focused on the experience of the student-athlete at Memorial Stadium as a superior competitive environment. Through the state-of-the-art technology in the facility to create an atmosphere worthy of a championship, competing teams would have received the experience of a lifetime. Additionally, the championships would continue to provide fans with an unbeatable tailgating experience at Tent City, a tradition since 1999.
“We’re grateful to everyone for thinking creatively to provide an outstanding proposal to continue hosting IHSA Football,” states DeLuce. “We have multiple iconic sport venues in our community and look forward to opportunities to host additional IHSA sports and/or other sport tournaments in the near future.”
For comments on today’s announcement, contact Jayne DeLuce, Visit Champaign County President & CEO, at 217-714-3540 or Kent Brown, Associate Athletics Director/Media Relations with the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics at 217-493-9795.
