How smart is this idea?
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 7:15 AM EDT
31 comments
Statement from Georgia Tech athletic director Dan Radakovich, addressing the potential of a future Georgia Tech-Georgia football game in the Georgia Dome:
There has been no discussion of moving a Georgia Tech home football game vs. the University of Georgia or any other Georgia Tech home game to the Georgia Dome. However, there have been some preliminary talks about the possibility of playing a "neutral site" game at the Dome between the two schools to kick off the 2011 season. This scenario would simply provide a one-year interruption in our regular home and home pattern. In other words, the 2010 game would be played in Athens as scheduled, the 2011 game would be played at the Georgia Dome, then, the 2012 game would remain a home game at Bobby Dodd Stadium to resume the normal home and home rotation.
"We are far from having any type of an agreement on this model, but for us it is an intriguing discussion from a long-term schedule standpoint. Currently, and into the foreseeable future, our football schedule features home games with Georgia, Clemson and Virginia Tech - arguably our three most attractive opponents - all in the same season on alternate years. By getting our home game with Georgia on an opposite-year cycle, it becomes much more fan-friendly and would provide us better financial consistency.
"We appreciate the interest being shown by Gary Stokan and the Atlanta Sports Council. Rest assured that wherever these discussions take us, we will make a decision that is in the best interest of Georgia Tech.
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Question.
Why does it matter if Dan’s ultimate plan is to move us to the SEC?
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
why not?
I mean he’d get his SEC sellouts every game. We’ve seen very little pressure on our losing basketball program (ala SEC style). I think it’s worth thinking about.
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
Oh man
That’s a dreadful thought. I bleed GT colors and have for my whole life, but that would seriously be a dagger through my heart.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
Why is that?
You do know that GT is a founding member of the SEC right? The competition would be better, the exposure would be better, the money would be better, and we would still get to beat up on the SEC like we do now.
Trust me, I hate the SEC love-fest as much as anyone here, but better business for the Institute all around is never a horrible idea. Personally, I think it would take a lot for it to actually happen, but I don’t think it’s a worse idea than moving Good Ol’e Fashioned Hate to the dome.
"This is America, if we can’t self-righteously look down on others and blame them for our faults, the commies win."-----Cormican on Bleeding Green Nation w/r/t fans overreacting to the Eagles signing of Michael Vick
Since
making this video was not a choice, I chose water-boarding.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
that video just make my morning
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 9:26 AM EDT up reply actions
honestly...
If they really wanna sell a few thousand more tickets, schedule crappy games later in the day. Attendance improves in all metrics based on kickoff time (I-AA, BCS opponents, OOC, ACC teams, etc.).
Secondly, let’s rank our regular opponents by BDS avg attendance since expansion to 55,000:
1. UGA
2. Clemson
3. FSU
4. Miami
5. Maryland
6. Wake
7. BC
8. NCSU
9. VT
10. UNC
11. UVA
12. Duke
And don’t say it’s because VT played on Thursdays is why their attendance is low. All ACC teams (except for Clemson this year) have better attendance on Thursdays than Saturdays. I would attribute Clemson’s down year to the economy more than it being a Thursday.
I say we wait and see what a Saturday attendance for VT is before we go and jump the shark. We don’t even know how well VT fans travel to ATL, yet, seeing as they’re the 9th best average attendance for a regular opponent.
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
Three games is nothing
My first four years at the Institute (don’t ask) we played three, four, five, and five SEC games. OK, they had been trying to rejoin the SEC at that point, and the ACC schedule hadn’t kicked in.
I understand why they are scheduling all these SEC teams: it’s better for recruiting and it’s better for the travel budget. I wish we’d played Louisville instead of Mississippi State, as originally planned, but that’s because I live in Louisville.
I’d be thrilled to move to the SEC. That’s where our traditional rivals are. Until the ‘80s Auburn was our clear #2 rival. We’d played them more times than we’d played Georgia, and they even had a parade before the game.
The pajama parade
I’ve seen the pictures. A family friend of mine said it was quite a bit of fun watching the sorority girls parade around in their “pajamas”
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 9:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Honestly
I just think the game is a cheap trick to sell more tickets. It’s essentially two home games in a row for us (revenue-wise) and the exchange is that UGA gets more time to prep for us.
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
Exactly. It's us selling out
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 9:55 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm back to digging the idea
Now that it’s confirmed by D-Rad that it would be a one year thing, and NOT take a home game from Tech, I like it.
You guys seem to scoff at the notion of Radakovich wanting to sell tickets, but the GTAA is a business, and he needs to make good business decisions. Would one rather make (guesstimates, obviously) $ x on odd years, and $(0.7 x) on even years, or $ x and $(0.9 x)? Keeping the revenue stream as consistent as possible is huge for a business, football season tickets are our biggest money-maker, and even years are a very tough sell right now.
Radakovich has done a heck of a job tackling the GTAA’s financial issues head-on, after being left a mess by Dave Braine. The era of the used-to-be-a-head-coach AD is over, replaced by the MBA AD era. And thank goodness Radakovich is doing this like an MBA.
call me naive or ignorant. I understand that athletics is a business but sometimes I feel that there has got to be some room for “what has always been done” within reason. I think UGA/Tech is one of those aspects. And we’d be making more money off the game because MORE mutts would be in the seats
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 9:56 AM EDT up reply actions
Exactly
You would think we would actually clear more by hosting it (not paying out to the Dome folks, etc)
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
The motivation isn't the ticket sales from the game.
It’s the shifting of UGA@GT from odd to even years.
Yes, there will be more Dawg fans at the Dome than Tech fans. If this comes to pass, how do we mitigate that? Get as many of your non-Dawg-fan friends as possible to come out for Tech. If your friends are anything like mine, they will want to be at the Dome, whether or not they’re GT/UGA fans. Gameday will be there, it will be a badass atmosphere, and there will be top-quality trim everywhere.
You can probably talk (at least some of) your Auburn/Bama/Florida/etc fan friends to throw on a gold shirt for the game. Split the ticket cost with them… Hell, just buy one or two friends a ticket.
If the best reason you have for “don’t do a game at the Dome” is that they will have more people than us, that is weak and embarrassing. Speak with your damn pocketbook.
by Ramblin Jeff on Oct 8, 2009 10:15 AM EDT up reply actions
But Bird has a great point
Fix the GD basketball team before you go messing with this part of the athletic department. Aint nothin wrong with the product that we’re puttin on the field…quit messing with it.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
Winfield agrees
nm
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
I still hate it
and I stand by the fact that Bobby Dodd would stand at the locker room door and never let the team come out.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
The more I think about it
the more I think my primary objection is playing in the Georgia Dome. The Peach Bowl last year didn’t feel like a college game (once I left the LSU tailgating area). It was, however, better than the first Peach Bowl I went to (in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, in the rain, on Christmas day).
we could play at the We Are Marshall Stadium
Herndon Stadium – 15,011 seats. Make the tickets quadruple the price so it’s the same amount of tix revenue.
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
I really think the primary motivation here
is moving the Georgia games at Tech to even years, not the immediate ticket sales from the one game.
by Ramblin Jeff on Oct 8, 2009 10:16 AM EDT up reply actions
You think so?
I don’t know man. I mean right now that seems lucrative. But who knows how good teams will be in upcoming years.
And besides if that was the ONLY objective, move it to a “neutral” field on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. OMG WHAT A THOUGHT! IMA GENIUS!
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions
Hell, let's just
Move it to here and we can all crash at my family’s house in our post-game drunken stupor
Make the tix $20k apiece.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
Id be interested to hear
The opinion of all the Old Money at Tech on this matter. You know all those grumpy dudes are bitchin up a storm right about now.
Maker's Mark--nectar of the gods...
Good point
They spit blood at you when they hear the word “blue”
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions
Count me out
I don’t have a problem shelling out $75/ticket to go to Athens every other year, but this Chick-Fil-A kickoff thing is rediculous. I checked StubHub, Ebay, Craigslist, etc. for tickets to the VT-Alabama game this year and the cheapest I could find was $250/ticket. Thats as much as I pay for my season tickets. I can’t afford those prices, so if you move the game I don’t think I’ll be there. If they’ll offer discounted rates to season ticket holders, I may be enticed, but I doubt that would happen. I do like the idea of switching up the years to make it more balanced, even when Clemson is down its still always a fun game to watch, last years lack of a home slate sucked. Lastly, moving the game from thanksgiving weekend where it belongs does really suck. Takes away the suspense and the build up. First game of the season is the most likely to be a fluke win or loss, and it would cheapen the year’s worth of respect you get from winning. Last game of the season is the finale, the last hurah, a chance to cap it off the right way. The last game of the season has a lot of Bowl implications too… would we have gotten into the Chick-Fil-A bowl last year with a loss to UGAy? I doubt anyone would have remembered if we had beaten UGAy in week one, and those that did would have thought it a fluke.
EvDigg!
Haven’t seen you around in a while but very good point. The CFA kickoff is very corporate….what does one(university) do for season ticket holders for a game that happens EVERY YEAR? Discounts? Cheaper season tickets? Some other type of incentive?
The college football season is so fragile. It's like a glass ball being pushed around from stadium to stadium by a rhinoceros.
by Winfield Featherston on Oct 8, 2009 3:28 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
why do we have to debate the logic?
Yes, there are plenty of reasons to logically move the game. However, what makes college football different than the NFL/major sports is the illogical. We have an old car that leads our team onto the field. We play a song about Budweiser even though alcohol is banned in NCAA stadiums.
Georgia Tech is about tradition first. Why can’t we just leave it alone. What happens if we do this and Georgie starts sucking and UNC becomes ridiculously good? Are we gonna move the Georgie game again?
If the issue is schedule balance, then find another OOC opponent to put on that off year to make the season ticket holders happy. Or we could just win and the demand would go up anyways, right?
I'm about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?
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