Evaluating the relocation of Georgia Tech’s most important home game of 2025
In a letter posted to Georgia Tech fans, Tech’s Athletic Director, J Batt, announced that the 2025 edition of Clean, Old Fashioned Hate would not be taking place at Bobby Dodd Stadium like previously scheduled, but will instead be played a mile south at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“In partnering with AMB Sports and Entertainment (AMBSE) to move Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for 2025, we agreed to changes in the contract that calls for us to play one game annually at Mercedes-Benz Stadium through 2026. As part of the new agreement, AMBSE will provide us with a $10 million guarantee just to play the 2025 Georgia Tech-Georgia game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a transformative revenue lift for Tech Athletics,” said Batt in his letter.
That bit at the end is why this is even happening. Our athletic department is still swamped in debt from past projects and have been a hindrance to our progress. Instant money like that in one paycheck is something that can’t be ignored. For context, that would cover 91% of Geoff Collins’ buyout.
This means that Georgia Tech’s next time hosting Georgia will be in 2027. We do not know yet who Tech will play in Mercedes-Benz in 2026, but we do know we host Colorado, Boston College, Duke, Louisville, and Wake Forest in ACC play.
To be unequivocally clear, the position of our staff is that we don’t like this move. We’re fully understanding of the financial incentives here, and I’m about to dig into that, but if given the choice, we would’ve kept the game at Bobby Dodd Stadium. There’s a reason though we aren’t getting paid to make these decisions, and we fully trust that J Batt is doing what he’s doing with the best interests of the Institute in mind, regardless of how we may feel right now while this news is still raw.
Pros
$10,000,000 payday for Georgia Tech
This aspect of the deal can’t be ignored. Tech is in a situation where they are saddled with significant debt while the college football landscape demands that teams spend more and more money to survive. J Batt’s job from day 1 has been to get the money, and like it or not, this is him getting that money, and from Arthur Blank no less. Part of the large scale changes at Georgia Tech within the Transforming Tomorrow campaign include ensuring athletics will be competitive at the national level. As one of our followers on Twitter recently put it, we’re in the midst of reclaiming our history, and that happens on and off the field.
What this money can do
A major reason athletic departments around the country are about to be forced to spend more is in the settlement of the House case, which will entail $3 billion dollars in back damages to past scholarship athletes. This cost, along with beginning to escalate the payments to players directly from Georgia Tech, will be items on the balance sheet for the foreseeable future.
From Batt: “To compete for championships at the highest level in the post-House era, athletics programs will need to make an additional financial investment of at least $20-22 million annually to participate in student-athlete revenue sharing at the maximum level, which is essential to compete with our peers. While at the same time, we will receive about $1 million less in annual distributions from the ACC, which will go towards our share of the $3 billion in back damages.”
To do a quick inventory on what Georgia Tech will have to pay for: coaches, administration, overhead expenses, building maintenance, players, gameday operations & personnel, debt service, Full Steam Ahead projects (Bobby Dodd Stadium, men’s basketball locker room, O’Keefe Gymnasium), and travel amongst other things I may be forgetting. So basically, we need cash any way we can get it without further inflating our debt. We are not alone in this situation of course, but right now every dollar helps put us on the plus side of things.
Cons
Messing with tradition
I’ve said on Scions of the Southland multiple times that bending scheduling tradition is totally ok, and in fact the new ACC schedules that have us with no specific repeat opponents I thought was fun. But, this is the exception. College football for all its uncontrollable parts at least can maintain now-century old rivalries, maintaining traditions that have embedded themselves deeply into the roots of our southern society. To us, that’s worth more than the payday.
By 2025, who knows how good we might be. If Brent Key keeps us on the path we’re on, there’s a real chance Tech could be a consistently ranked team next season, and establishing a greater and greater home field advantage will inevitably be part of that. Keeping our fans out of our own building for the most emotional game of the year does not help in that regard. By moving to a stadium with 25k more seats than Bobby Dodd, who do we think is going to fill the majority of those seats? I sure hope we do, but our fanbase is not at the point of dilligently filling out Bobby Dodd regardless of opponent yet. I sure hope we are as soon as humanly possible (buy your ND tickets here), but until we prove it, this feels a little gross.
Lots of students lose one of two, or their only, COFH home game
This is what tugs at my heartstrings the most. Students attending Georgia Tech are getting out a faster rate. This fall’s freshman will likely only get one home game if they stay in school to their senior fall. If they graduate in three years, they will get two road COFH’s and one neutral site. If they graduate in five years (still relatively common at GT), they’ll get three road COFH’s, one neutral site, and one home game. That’s a really tough draw to end with. The GT football customer base of the future are those students, and that customer base continues to expand as Tech enrolls significantly more active students now than they did in previous decades. Giving them the experience that will make them want to come back is crucial to the lifespan of Georgia Tech football staying competitive. Not having that I don’t think is optimal.
Overall
There are clear positives and negatives here. I can’t ignore the $10,000,000 figure and be rational talking about this move. I also can’t help but feel awful that students are losing a home game and the environment will likely be uber pro-uga in MBS. That said, Batt is right in saying new kinds of decisions have to be made to survive in college sports now. It sucks that this is the one we’re making. At least, for now, it’s just the one time, and lord willing it is the only time this will happen.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments (with at least modicum of sanity, please).