Last game for 56-year old Georgia football press box. Details on changes coming in stadium

When the final words are written and the laptops are powered down after midnight Sunday following the Georgia football game against Ole Miss, the three rows of seats in a prime Sanford Stadium location will cease being a working press box.

On Monday, Turner Construction is set to begin turning that prime location into revenue-generating club seats.

The press box that was built in 1967 when the stadium was double decked and Uga II was prowling the sidelines is the vantage point where Larry Munson told fans to “Get the Picture. Where names like Furman Bisher, Billy Harper, Jesse Outlar and Tony Barnhart chronicled the Bulldogs.

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The open-air press box is closing with a doozy Saturday night with the CFP No. 2 Bulldogs vs. No. 10 Rebels — just the second top 10 November game between the hedges since No. 3 Auburn turned back No. 4 Georgia 13-7 in 1983. The only other was Georgia-Tennessee a year ago.

“We’ll definitely be going out with a bang, that’s for sure,” said Claude Felton, Georgia’s sports information director since 1979 who missed just one home game since then due to a niece’s wedding.

The current press box is where reporters covered Georgia’s glory days in the 1980s under Vince Dooley and the latest glory days of the current back-to-back champion Bulldogs under Kirby Smart.

“It’s a little bit dated, but the view is fantastic,” said ESPN reporter Mark Schlabach, who figures he’s covered more than 100 Georgia home games starting in 1993 including as a writer for The Red & Black, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Washington Post. “I prefer open air press boxes so you can hear the crowd and feel the excitement.”

A new multi-level press box will be constructed in the southwest corner of the stadium as part of the $68.5 million two phase renovation of Sanford Stadium.

The new press box, designed by HOK, will be ready in time for the 2024 season that includes marquee home game against Tennessee and Auburn.

The current press box at midfield has 143 seats with countertops and offers some of the best views of the game, particularly those between the 40-yard lines. It’s three rows with the third row added in the early 1980s.

“We were on a run then and we we’re getting a lot more media attention,” Felton said.

Felton said the “bulk” of the press box “is exactly the same footprint almost as it was in 1967.”

The current press box has had upgrades to its bathrooms. A TV booth was added in the 1990s and twenty-six additional theater style seats, upgraded countertops and floor heaters for cold weather games were added in 1999 when the press box was named for longtime SID and tennis coach Dan Magill.

Two years earlier, Schlabach was in the press box at the Kentucky game when his dog — a chocolate Labrador retriever — got loose from his house 10 blocks away and made it onto the 50-yard line. The crowd went crazy, he said.

“After I figured out it was Tubby, I ran in here to find Claude,” Schlabach said. “He was on his radio saying we need to find the owner of that dog. I’m like you just found me.”

Replacing the current space with a new corner press box continues a trend.

Auburn’s relocated press box is in a corner of Jordan-Hare Stadium overlooking an end zone. So are the press boxes at SoFi Stadium where the national championship game was played in January and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta where the SEC championship game is held.

What Georgia is doing in relocating the press box “is today’s norm of what all new construction is moving towards,” said Tanner Stines, the school’s associate athletic director for facilities & capital projects.

Dennis Dodd, a former Football Writers Association of America president, said press boxes at midfield “are going away. Every rendering I’ve seen of a new stadium or stadium renovation is putting the press box in the corner because those seats are too valuable. That’s not what we like, but I certainly get it.”

Dodd, a CBSSports.com college football writer who says he’s covered about 10 games at Sanford Stadium, said the press box changes hit him when he attended a game at Hard Rock Stadium that hosts the Orange Bowl. The press box moved from the 50-yard line to the corner of the venue.

“It’s just the way of the world,” he said. “The next step, someday we’ll have to buy our seats.”

Georgia's current press box located on the 200 level will become the 1929 Club — the year the stadium opened — offering views from the South side similar to the Champions Club on the North side of the stadium with exterior seating.

“It’s one of the best spots,” athletic director Josh Brooks said. “It just sits a little closer to the field than most. It’s just a great vantage point.”

The spots will go the highest pocketed donors which may be entirely Silver Circle members who have given $1 million in lifetime contributions, Stines said.

“We have so many donors who supported us, especially the last few years, that we need more premium areas to offer them,” Brooks said. “It’s always a challenge to create more premium spaces.”

The TV network broadcast booths and the home and visiting coaches boxes will remain at the current location but will be rebuilt.

The new two-level press box — which Felton has provided input on — will be enclosed.

The view will be at about the goal line to the 5-yard line but the aim is to minimize restrictive sight lines from that vantage point, Stines said.

The top level will be for writers and a level below will be more seating for media as well as booths for the Georgia Bulldog Radio Network and other radio booths as well as the clock operator and replay booth.

On the lower level will be six premium suites for fans.

The current press box still has copper wiring and analog phone systems and the new press box will run on fiber optic cable.

Georgia has huddled with ESPN to make sure the rebuilt broadcast space will have the latest technologies needed.

The new press box is being built on levels 4 and 5 next to what’s currently the South suites.

A bank of screens will be placed all the way across the press box’s glass windows to include the scoreboard, the TV broadcast and other games. A bistro style dining area will be included with two and four-person top tables.

Schlabach, who will cover Saturday’s game, said the most packed and loudest he remembered working a game was against Notre Dame at night in 2019.

Said Felton: “It will be kind of a different feeling walking out for the last time.”