Sugar Bowl weighs two alternate sites

Baton Rouge or Atlanta?

That is the choice for the site of this year's Sugar Bowl, as the Bowl Championship Series commissioners met yesterday in Chicago to discuss plans for moving the Jan. 2 game, which was scheduled for the Superdome in New Orleans before the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

No decision will be made until the first week of October, but BCS officials said they have begun preparations to move the Sugar Bowl to a city that can provide not only a stadium but hotel space.

And while there is sentiment for keeping the game in Louisiana, there would be many logistical problems in Baton Rouge.

''We still think it's doable," said Sugar Bowl executive director Paul Hoolahan on a conference call. ''But it's obvious we are faced with some formidable challenges. We're not able to use the Superdome and we have to determine what options are available to us."

Hoolahan said Sugar Bowl and BCS officials would monitor the situation in New Orleans for the next three weeks, while also formulating a contingency plan to move the game to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

BCS coordinator and Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said the BCS would make every effort to make the game work in Louisiana. ''We want to be part of that recovery story for the Gulf region," said Weiberg.

But the more Hoolahan talked, the more obstacles seemed to loom for a Sugar Bowl in Louisiana. While Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge -- the home field of Louisiana State -- is available, Hoolahan said he does not want to shortchange fans who come to watch their team, and the problems of having fans in New Orleans during the week and getting them to Baton Rouge on game day could be enormous.

While some are predicting that New Orleans's French Quarter could almost be back to normal by the new year, the projections about hotel space are not as optimistic. The Sugar Bowl generally takes 32,000 of New Orleans's 38,000 hotel rooms. But the hurricane sliced into that number considerably, and the Hyatt and Hilton -- hotels that have been a key part of Sugar Bowl week -- may be occupied by FEMA officials and by hotel employees who lost their own housing.

Atlanta not only has the hotel space and stadium to handle the event, but it also is in Southeastern Conference territory, and the SEC generally sends its champion to the Sugar Bowl (unless that team makes it to the BCS title game, which this season is the Rose Bowl).

''We have a long history with the Sugar Bowl, and if the game isn't able to be held in New Orleans, we wanted it someplace in the nine-state [SEC] region, and Atlanta meets that criteria," said SEC commissioner Mike Slive.