The annual Army-Navy football game will "move back to Philadelphia" in '17, but the two schools "have yet to award games" for '18 and beyond, according to Ryan Sharrow of the BALTIMORE BUSINESS JOURNAL. Saturday's game will be played at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium, and Navy AD Chet Gladchuk said that 10 cities have "expressed interest in hosting the game," listing Baltimore, Seattle, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, N.Y., Boston and DC. He added that the games would be "played at the NFL venue of each city," which "must hold at least 70,000 people." Gladchuk and Army AD Boo Corrigan are meeting "with the prospective cities Friday in Baltimore," and formal bids are "due in January." Army and Navy officials will then "visit the interested cities in the spring and expect to announce the next round of games in May." Gladchuk said that the announcement will "likely cover a five-year period, and could go as high as eight." Saturday's game "marks the 117th meeting of the two academies, with 86 of them have been played in Philadelphia." Baltimore has "hosted the game 10 times" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 12/8). Gladchuk said the prospective cities on Saturday "will get a chance to see this game first-hand." Gladchuk: "They'll be part of all the festivities and see exactly what hosting this game entails. Typically, what has happened is that once they see it and get a feel for it they either get really excited about it or they get scared away. They look at all the logistics and the requirements and realize they can't pull it off. So this is kind of a make or break weekend to see which cities are really serious." Gladchuk said that the formal bids must be "very detailed and meet a myriad of set parameters per the request for proposal" (Annapolis CAPITAL GAZETTE, 12/8).
