Kennesaw is a suburban city northwest of Atlanta in Cobb County, Georgia, United States, located within the greater Atlanta metropolitan area. Known from its original settlement in the 1830s until 1887 as Big Shanty, it became Kennesaw under its 1887 charter. According to the 2020 census, Kennesaw had a population of 33,036, a 10.9% increase in population over the preceding decade. Kennesaw has an important place in railroad history. During the Civil War, Kennesaw was the staging ground for the Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862. Kennesaw is home to Kennesaw State University, an R2 research institution and the third-largest public university in the state of Georgia.
Southern Polytechnic State University was a public, co-educational, state university in Marietta, Georgia, United States approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta. Until 2015, it was an independent part of the University System of Georgia and called itself "Georgia's Technology University."
Dignity Health Sports Park is a multi-use sports complex located on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson, California. The complex consists of the 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park soccer stadium, the Dignity Health Sports Park tennis stadium, a track-and-field facility, and the VELO Sports Center velodrome. It is approximately 14 miles (23 km) south of downtown Los Angeles, and its primary tenant is the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer (MLS). The main stadium was also home to the Los Angeles Wildcats of the XFL in 2020. The LA Galaxy II of MLS Next Pro play their home matches at the complex's track and field facility. For 2020 and 2021, the stadium served as the temporary home of the San Diego State Aztecs football team.
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. Opened in 1992, it was then the second-largest covered stadium in the world by capacity, behind the Pontiac Silverdome. Though the Georgia Dome was a profitable facility, its primary tenant, the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, grew dissatisfied with it less than two decades after its opening and began planning for a replacement stadium. It was closed and demolished in 2017.
Dick's Sporting Goods Park, also known as DSG Park, is a soccer-specific stadium located in Commerce City, Colorado, that is home to the Colorado Rapids men's professional soccer team. The stadium seats up to 18,061 people for soccer matches, but can accommodate up to 19,734 for special soccer events and 27,000 for concerts. It became the third home venue for the Rapids upon its opening in 2007. Sitting at just over 5,200 feet (1,600 m) above sea level, the stadium has the highest elevation of any stadium regularly used by MLS teams.
Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field is a stadium in East Hartford, Connecticut. It is primarily used for football and soccer, and is the home field of the University of Connecticut Huskies (UConn). In 2010, it was home to the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League. The stadium, which opened in 2003, was the first stadium used primarily by an NCAA FBS team to open in the 21st century. Prior to its opening, Connecticut had played on-campus at Memorial Stadium in Storrs from 1953 to 2002.
Stevens Stadium is a 7,000-seat soccer stadium on the west coast of the United States, located on the campus of Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. The stadium is the current home of the Santa Clara Broncos soccer teams and was the former home of the now-defunct football team as well as the baseball team. The baseball team moved to their new home at Stephen Schott Stadium in 2005.
A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used for multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a design philosophy that stresses multifunctionality over speciality. It is used most commonly in Canada and the United States, where the two most popular outdoor team sports—Canadian football or American football and baseball—require radically different facilities. Football uses a rectangular field, while baseball is played on a diamond with a large outfield. Since Canadian football fields are larger than American ones, the design specifications for Canadian facilities are somewhat less demanding. The particular design to accommodate both is usually an oval, although some later designs use an octorad. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, it also presents some challenges.
The Kennesaw State Owls fields 16 varsity athletics teams, competing for Kennesaw State University. After spending ten years in Division II's Peach Belt Conference, the university fully transitioned to Division I status in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the beginning of the 2009–10 season. All of Kennesaw State's sports teams competed in the Atlantic Sun Conference through the 2023–24 school year, except that football competed as an FCS independent in the 2023 season only. In July 2023, KSU started a transition to the Football Bowl Subdivision in advance of its move to Conference USA, which happened in 2024. Of its 18 varsity sports, only women's lacrosse is not sponsored by CUSA. The school mascot is Scrappy the Owl.
Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia with two campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in the Kennesaw area and the other in Marietta on a combined 581 acres (235 ha) of land. The school was founded in 1963 by the Georgia Board of Regents using local bonds and a federal space-grant during a time of major Georgia economic expansion after World War II. KSU also holds classes at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Dalton State College, and in Paulding County (Dallas). The total enrollment exceeds 45,000 students making KSU the third-largest university by enrollment in Georgia.
Sports in Georgia include professional teams, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations, and active amateur teams and individual sports.
The 2010 Women's Professional Soccer season was the second season for the WPS, the top level professional women's soccer league in the United States. Regular season champion FC Gold Pride won the WPS Championship on September 26 with a 4–0 victory over the Philadelphia Independence.
The Atlanta Beat was an American soccer club based in Atlanta, Georgia that competed on a professional level. The team joined Women's Professional Soccer as an expansion team in 2010, and played its home games at Kennesaw State University Soccer Stadium, the result of a public-private partnership between the team and Kennesaw State University. The club took the name and logo of the former Atlanta Beat (WUSA) of the defunct Women's United Soccer Association.
The Kennesaw State Owls football program represents Kennesaw State University in college football. The Owls team competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as a member of Conference USA (CUSA). The team began play in 2015 as a member of the Big South Conference at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level. In 2022, KSU's full-time home of the Atlantic Sun Conference launched an FCS football league, with KSU as one of its initial six members. After the 2022 season, KSU started the transition to the FBS, in advance of the school's 2024 move to CUSA.
Sports in Atlanta has a rich history, including the oldest on-campus NCAA Division I football stadium, Bobby Dodd Stadium, built in 1913 by the students of Georgia Tech. Atlanta also played host to the second intercollegiate football game in the South, played between the A&M College of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Piedmont Park in 1892; this game is now called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. The city hosts college football's annual Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10 km race. Atlanta was the host city for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics, and Downtown Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park was built for and commemorates the games.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Opened in 2017 as a replacement for the Georgia Dome, it is the home of the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The stadium is owned by the state of Georgia through the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, and operated by AMB Group, the parent organization of the Falcons and Atlanta United FC. In 2016, the total cost of its construction was estimated at US$1.6 billion.
Atlanta United 2 are the reserve team of the Major League Soccer club Atlanta United FC. The team plays in MLS Next Pro, the official reserve league of MLS. The team was established on November 14, 2017 and began their first professional season in March 2018.
The 2021 Kennesaw State Owls football team represented the Kennesaw State University as a member of the Big South Conference during the 2021 NCAA Division I FCS football season. Led by seventh-year head coach Brian Bohannon, the Owls played their home games at the Fifth Third Bank Stadium in Kennesaw, Georgia.
