The Houston Host Committee for the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship officially launched the Buy Houston: By Houston supplier diversity program this morning in front of an audience of Houston small business owners at the Houston Community College District Auditorium.
The program aims to improve access to the bids, contracts, and other opportunities associated with college football’s biggest game for Houston-area minority-, woman-, veteran- and LGBTQIA+owned businesses. The estimated economic impact generated by the CFP National Championship is expected to surpass $250,000,000.
“A major part of our mission as a host city is to ensure that as many dollars as possible spent on this game stay in the Houston community,” said Host Committee President and Harris County-Houston Sports Authority Vice President Chris Massey. “Events of this scale represent a potentially game-changing opportunity for local businesses in a wide variety of sectors, and our goal is to ensure that business owners are aware of that opportunity and understand how to put themselves in a position to compete for it.”
The Buy Houston: By Houston program offers local businesses of all sizes a step-by-step approach to get in front of all of the planning partners involved in the production of the national championship game and all of its surrounding activities. Part of that process includes receiving certification from the City of Houston’s Office of Business Opportunity. Representatives of that office were on hand to explain the certification process.
Certified businesses will be added to a vendor database which the College Football Playoff Committee will then share with all its Planning Partners – the companies, networks and organizations involved in producing the national championship game and its ancillary events.
Opportunities exist in more than a dozen different categories, including cleaning and janitorial services, the hospitality industry, printing companies, and audio/visual and staging solutions, among others.