Husky Stadium to host all WIAA state championship games

SEATTLE — Seattle, Washington will be the official home for all high school football state championship games for the upcoming football season.

This change comes from playing championship games at the Tacoma Dome in Seattle during previous seasons.

The games will now all be held at Husky Stadium on the University of Washington campus.

Games will start Friday, December 1, and finish Saturday, December 2. Friday’s games will be at 11 a.m., three p.m., and seven p.m. The 3A, 1A, and 1B title games will take place Friday.

Saturday, December 2 will see the 4A, 2A, and 2B games take place at the same times as Friday.

With there being three games each day instead of the traditional four, it gives teams four hours to finish their game and clear out of the locker room. This is due to the fact that Husky Stadium only has two locker rooms. Increasing the amount of time between games from three to four hours creates the opportunity for teams to not have to hustle to get out of the locker room as other teams are waiting to get in and prepare for their state championship game.

A statement made by the WIAA stated that having the games at Husky Stadium is on a one-year basis, and will “rebid and find a consistent home for the 2024-28 classification cycle.”

One factor the WIAA will have to look into for future years if Husky Stadium will be the host for the next four years is the traffic and times of games.

The first set of three games are scheduled to start at 11 a.m. Friday, which is during normal school hours for university students, as well as traditional work hours for parents and fans.

Other factors relating to problems at Husky Stadium could be if the Husky football team makes the playoffs, there could be games there, as well as other traffic from other postseason sports such as soccer and volleyball.

The WIAA has stated that they will also use their ticket-selling system, keeping prices of tickets down even though they will be in a collegiate stadium. The problem will come with the concessions and food.

Being in a collegiate stadium, the fans will have to adjust to purchasing food at the stadium at whatever prices are set from the university for normal Husky football games. There will also be no alcohol sold at the event.

The Tacoma Dome was home to WIAA state football championships from 1995-2019. The dome was nice until recent years, when renovations and prices made it hard to have a good experience for fans, let alone the turf and conditions the players were competing on for a state title.

Since 2019, the state football championships had been moved to various high school locations. They were at three different high schools depending on the class, Mount Tahoma in Tacoma, Harry E. Lang Stadium in Lakewood, and Sparks Stadium in Puyallup each hosted two games a piece. With all games returning to a collegiate venue, it will bring back more of the “championship feel” that was lost in recent years.

The WIAA will also look at moving other sports away from the Tacoma Dome due to the high prices the venue asks for.