At MGoBlog, Brian Cook asks
Is this a good deal? Alabama and Clemson are opening the season in Atlanta. Kudos to them; the trend of moving football games off campus is far less annoying than the one in which no one plays anyone. But I wonder if it’s worth it:
Alabama and Clemson will reportedly earn nearly $2 million apiece for their season-opening matchup in Atlanta.
Quick calculation suggests that $4 million divided by 90k (the approximate capacity of Bryant-Denny) is about 44 bucks, and we know that on average SEC tickets go for well more than that. So why not just have a home-and-home?
Dude. Dude. C’mon.
… And one other thing about that game, which will be televised nationally by ABC. is that beer will be sold at the Georgia Dome concession stands. The beer sales will be cut off at halftime.
Get The Picture 
Beer sales? How nice. Where’s the petition to get the WLOCP on board with that program?
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On the desk in Michael Adams’ office, I’m afraid.
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Each team needed an opponent for this year only so a home and home wouldn’t work unless the home team split its profits with the visitor which would never happen. Getting almost 2mil on top of the exposure of ESPN Gameday and recruiting the Atlanta area makes this a damn good deal for both teams.
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Brian, you are confusing revenue and profit. $44 per ticket is revenue – you have to pay all sorts of costs to open the stadium, print tickets, staff the stadium, etc. $2MM is profit – you get it free and clear.
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Good point, Whiteshoes.
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They both want more exposure with GA high school recruits.
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Is this a good deal? Fucking right it’s a good deal. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The end.
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That petition is actually on top of the shredder pile in Adams’ office.
FWIW, I like to have a beer every now and then, but the last time I had beer at a game was the Outback Bowl where we played Purdue. I ended up head-butting a little kick who had a plastic GA helmet on, picking up some old lady after we won, and losing the nine people I was with after the game and wandering the streets of Tampa alone. Clearly I was over-served. Sometimes it’s just better not to have beer there.
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scdawg ruined it for all of us.
We’ll I guess I’ve made an ass of myself in Jax b4 the ban.
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Can’t say I am a fan of buying beer at games – way too expensive. I prefer the old method of smuggling in bourbon.
Sadly, it also leads to the same issues scdawg and HVL Dawg faced.
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I think his point still stands that the two schools can make more money from a home and home series, because they don’t have to pay out as much. On top of that, the college-town community loses money that people would pay at the gas stations, for parking, at restaurants and etc.
Michigan State is losing money by agreeing to play Western Michigan at Ford Field in Detroit. They went ahead and scheduled it anyways, because WMU feels slighted by BigTen teams not giving them many games in Kalamazoo and both teams look for exposure in the Detroit area.
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