FRIDAY NIGHT BLIGHT? The WALL STREET JOURNAL reports that public high schools are using tax money to add luxury boxes to football stadiums and basketball facilities, “taking a page from the pros’ playbook on VIP seating.”

Last year, Vidalia (GA) High School dropped over $2M in public tax money to build a fieldhouse with eight air-conditioned skyboxes. And Brookwood (GA) High School erected a VIP area overlooking the stadium where school athletic program contributors “can lounge on leather couches and have a pregame meal.”

Three high schools in Denton (TX) share an $18M, 12,000-seat stadium and recently installed “two VIP suites, with tiered seating and cable TV.”

But the WSJ notes the “huge upfront investments [in luxury boxes] make them a high-stakes bet” - and there has been public backlash.

When the Rogers School District in Arkansas wanted to build boxes into two planned stadiums, district Business Manager David Cauldwell said the “backlash was so immediate and intense that it scrapped the skybox idea.”

It’s no surprise that luxury boxes at high school stadiums are concentrated in the sports-mad South and Southwest, but the “push for private funding is spreading northward.”

Lafayette Jefferson (IN) High School recently built an $8M, 6,500-seat stadium with a seven-story press box and hospitality area.