Ninety dollars is a seat on the student government bus, a hotel room and tickets to the FAMU- Tennessee State University Classic game.
“SGA does not make any money from the students participating in the ATL Classic,” said Morris Hawkins coordinator of budget for the Student Government Association
According to Hawkins, SGA provides most of the financial obligation to fund the trip and transportation; students will only need to pay a small portion.
“220 FAMU students have already signed up for the bus,” Hawkins said. “We reserved four bus for transportation.”
The ATL Classic is hosted by the 100 Black Men of Atlanta and Bank of America.
“We worked and planned for this project for the last year,” said Sharon Saunders FAMU’s chief communication officer. “We promoted the Atlanta classic on Facebook, Twitter, through our alumni connections, sports information office and the Office of Communications.”
100 Black Men of Atlanta have total control over producing and executing all events at the ATL Classic. On the other hand, FAMU and the 100 Black Men of Atlanta have a new contract that allows FAMU to receive a minimum of $400,000 from the ATL Classic.
“Florida A&M University, is responsible for supplying the talent,” Saunders said. “The money from the Atlanta Classic goes into the FAMU Athletic Department.”
Hawkins said each bus cost $2,600 to rent. Each bus has 56 seats, wireless Internet and possibly a television screen on board.
“There will be a total of six faculty supervisors coming to the Atlanta Classic and two faculty supervisors to each bus,” Hawkins said. “There will be a total of 16 students that will assist the supervisors and four student assistants to each bus.”
“That’s our way to make sure safety measures are in place along with a roll call before we leave Florida A&M University and before we leave Atlanta,” according to Hawkins.
In the past 10 years that Florida A&M played against Tennessee State University, FAMU has lead the series 8-2.