Playing rivalry games in NFL stadiums is a sad — and sadly understandable — reality of college football today

The walk to Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium takes you past fraternity houses with couches in the yard, dorms with spray-painted bedsheets, academic buildings filled with knowledge-hungry students even on a football Saturday. (This is Georgia Tech, after all.) Sure, you’ll have to step lightly; the sidewalk is often cracked, beer cans are everywhere, and there are always random chicken wing bones to avoid. (This is Atlanta, after all.) But when you arrive at the century-plus-old concrete behemoth, you’re fully in the mood for some college football. And if it’s the last Saturday in November, you’re filled with Clean Old-Fashioned Hate.

The walk to Atlanta’s nearby Mercedes-Benz Stadium, by contrast, is wide and clean, thoughtfully designed and masterfully executed, over sidewalks pristine enough to eat chicken wings off of — not that you’ll see any. There’s a tastefully planned and regimented Tailgating Zone — sponsored by a certain Atlanta-based home improvements company, of course — and the entire experience is not unlike walking into a cathedral, almost overwhelming in its grandeur.

Next year, Mercedes-Benz will host “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate,” the annual Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry game — the first time since 1912 that the Georgia Tech-hosted half of the rivalry won’t be played at Bobby Dodd. It’s the latest example of the increasing NFL-ization of college football — and, sadly, it’s also completely understandable, given the new financial realities of the college game. Playing a rivalry game in an NFL stadium will provide, in the words of Georgia Tech athletic director J Batt, “a transformative revenue lift” — and, in college football’s wild new world, tradition is a cupcake and revenue a behemoth.

True, old-timey stadiums, even retrofitted ones, aren’t as…

Source link : https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/playing-rivalry-games-in-nfl-stadiums-is-a-sad–and-sadly-understandable–reality-of-college-football-today-192418855.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-16 19:24:18

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