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There was a press conference in Jacksonville this week to discuss the Georgia-Florida football game.
Or is it Florida-Georgia?
Anyway, the interesting thing was how the mayor and other city officials never used the game’s most popular and enduring name.
Can you say, “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party?”
Not without getting the side-eye from the people who run the extravaganza on the banks of the St. John’s River. Like liquor during Prohibition, authorities banned the name synonymous with the Georgia-Florida football game.
They believed it conjured visions of drunkenness, debauchery and Ron Zook wearing a beer helmet.
It did, though there is no evidence the Zooker ever slammed pregame Bud Lights at the Palatka Gator Club tailgate party.
There was and is a lot of drinking. So to clean up the image and avoid the allusion they endorsed any mayhem, the City of Jacksonville stopped using the alcohol-infused name in 1988.
The schools dropped the name in 2006. They got with the SEC and asked CBS to do the same. Verne Lundquist would no longer greet viewers with, “Welcome to the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”
It’s time to welcome it back.
A lot has changed in the past 20 years. Namely, Jacksonville and the two universities are now in the booze business.
In essence, they are wagging a finger with one hand and serving you a $9 Dos Equis with the other.
Florida began selling alcohol at games in 2016. All SEC schools eventually followed, though Auburn and Georgia initially only sold alcohol in premium seating areas.
They both joined the party this year. Beer is now available to every fan old enough to drink at Sanford Stadium.
The last parcel of the moral high ground has been lost. Or, more accurately, sold.
Georgia’s projected to generate about $1.4 million from alcohol sales this year. That will pay for…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/silencing-nickname-no-longer-adds-080442547.html
Author : The Gainesville Sun
Publish date : 2024-10-31 08:04:42
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