Tech - uga in 2025 at MB Stadium

[stinger78]

If because of the House decision, we can't afford to have home games at BDS anymore then we really need to reevaluate what we are doing.

I think that is a bit of an over reach on what JBatt was saying. I read him to say we have to get a jump on that $22M for next season and this was a one-off way to cha-ching $10M.

 

[GoldZ]

If you are not able to see that the damage from doing this (admitting we are little brother and that our home stadium isn't good enough) is far greater for us than the $10M we will receive, then I don't know what to tell you.

Why do you think so many fund raising initiatives are done by Batt? Hint: stadium needs help. As for the admitting little brother status...ONE thing and ONE thing ONLY will solve that...beating their arse.

 

[TooTall]

Where do you see that Tech fans have first dibs at tickets? Unless you have specific knowledge, I'm willing to bet that isn't true. By agreeing to this deal, we forfeit control over ticket sales to MBS or whoever is running this thing.

Also, even at full strength, Tech's fanbase would max out at, what, 45-50k? Even if every Tech fan bought a ticket at MBS, it would still mean that tens of thousands of dwags would buy up the rest. That's the reality of moving the game to a 70k seat stadium. So maybe, idk, it's not the best idea to do that...

Literally in the press release....

"In short, while tickets for Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate will not be a part of our 2025 football season tickets packages, seats for Georgia Tech season ticket members who purchase tickets for the GT-UGA game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be assigned after MBS suite and club seat holders only. This is a significant move up in seating priority for Tech season ticket members over our previous games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and will result in significantly more highly sought-after seats being available to Yellow Jackets fans first."

When new professional sports stadiums are bought, their season ticket holders must buy a Personal Seat License, or PSL. This gives them a shot at the same number of tickets for other events for each PSL they own. We were able to bypass the vast majority of PSLs for Tech season ticket holders to buy seats. After the suite and clubs level folks get their dibs, again only 1 ticket for each PSL they own, then it's on us to buy the tickets.

I'm buying COFH tix at MBS....whose with me?

 

[Secret_AznMan]

A UGAg Walmart fan will live in a single wide to afford his football tickets. A Tech millionaire will sit back in the movie theater of his $1M home to watch the game on TV. Very different animals!

People want a good football team but won't go to like 5 to 7 games a year in BDS to make it happen.
We had a decently strong fanbase before geoff, he and Stansbury did irreparable damage to our program. It seems like even now with a competitive team, those fans are gone for good.

 

[stinger78]

People want a good football team but won't go to like 5 to 7 games a year in BDS to make it happen.
We had a decently strong fanbase before geoff, he and Stansbury did irreparable damage to our program. It seems like even now with a competitive team, those fans are gone for good.

They’ll be back. Give it time.

 

[JacketOff]

Where do you see that Tech fans have first dibs at tickets? Unless you have specific knowledge, I'm willing to bet that isn't true. By agreeing to this deal, we forfeit control over ticket sales to MBS or whoever is running this thing.

Also, even at full strength, Tech's fanbase would max out at, what, 45-50k?

Neither of those statements are true.

But for fun, suppose there are only 45k Tech fans spread out across the globe. Why have we had a stadium with a larger capacity than our entire fanbase for decades? The reality is that we do have a relatively small fan base than the average P4 team. Is it 45k small? No. There’s MAC teams with more fans than that. We’re also downsizing our stadium’s capacity while also upgrading the experience, and playing this one game at MBS is going to help pay for it. It still doesn’t mean Tech fans should just forfeit their tickets or not go to the game at MBS. If anything it should encourage more to go. If we ever truly want to compete with UGA, literally the easiest thing to do is just support the program. Sitting at home bitching while UGA fans bark and have a great time at MBS is the opposite of helping.

 

[FredJacket]

Can JBatt get UGA to pay us even more to just have it in Athens every year? I am curious where the [financial] line is.

 

[bucknellbison31]

Neither of those statements are true.

But for fun, suppose there are only 45k Tech fans spread out across the globe. Why have we had a stadium with a larger capacity than our entire fanbase for decades? The reality is that we do have a relatively small fan base than the average P4 team. Is it 45k small? No. There’s MAC teams with more fans than that. We’re also downsizing our stadium’s capacity while also upgrading the experience, and playing this one game at MBS is going to help pay for it. It still doesn’t mean Tech fans should just forfeit their tickets or not go to the game at MBS. If anything it should encourage more to go. If we ever truly want to compete with UGA, literally the easiest thing to do is just support the program. Sitting at home bitching while UGA fans bark and have a great time at MBS is the opposite of helping.

Way to build up a strawman. Obviously I'm not referring to all Tech alumni/fans everywhere. I'm referring to people who actually would consider coming to a game.

 

[stech81]

Moving the game 1 time is not going to cause >$10mm damage to our program.

I agree, but 3 and 1/3 years of Collins sure did.
Have I told you how much I hate him?

 

[bucknellbison31]

Literally in the press release....

"In short, while tickets for Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate will not be a part of our 2025 football season tickets packages, seats for Georgia Tech season ticket members who purchase tickets for the GT-UGA game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be assigned after MBS suite and club seat holders only. This is a significant move up in seating priority for Tech season ticket members over our previous games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and will result in significantly more highly sought-after seats being available to Yellow Jackets fans first."

When new professional sports stadiums are bought, their season ticket holders must buy a Personal Seat License, or PSL. This gives them a shot at the same number of tickets for other events for each PSL they own. We were able to bypass the vast majority of PSLs for Tech season ticket holders to buy seats. After the suite and clubs level folks get their dibs, again only 1 ticket for each PSL they own, then it's on us to buy the tickets.

I'm buying COFH tix at MBS....whose with me?

That's not giving Tech fans priority to buy tickets. It's giving season ticket holders priority seating ASSIGNMENT, which is a HUGE difference. The key phrase in the release is "seats for Georgia Tech season ticket members who purchase tickets". In other words, we're given priority after we've already bought tickets, but we're not given priority to actually buy tickets. If I had to guess, that's why season tickets won't include this game — because the number of season ticket holders exceeds Tech's guaranteed allotment in the deal (not to mention parents, band, etc.).

 

[Vespidae]

They’ll be back. Give it time.

GT attendance is down, on average, 14% from 2005. Average attendance 2005-2019 (the latest published figures available) is 48,039. It was 37,819 (estimated) in 2021, but that was COVID. The COFH game regularly pulls 55,000 ...

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I’d play every game in Athens for a decade if it meant we could build a stadium that is top notch and we replenish all accounts that the past 30 years of ineptitude has cost us. Then we could pay top coaches and top players and we’d win. JBatt is doing an incredible job of digging us out of this hole. Keep it going. Losing in the Benz isn’t any worse than losing at home.

 

[684Bee]

I’d play every game in Athens for a decade if it meant we could build a stadium that is top notch and we replenish all accounts that the past 30 years of ineptitude has cost us. Then we could pay top coaches and top players and we’d win. JBatt is doing an incredible job of digging us out of this hole. Keep it going. Losing in the Benz isn’t any worse than losing at home.

Yeah, it’s not like we have some great home field advantage. We haven’t beaten them at BDS since 1999.

 

[AUFC]

Our fanbase really doesn't rank that poorly among student body peers. I'm talking about the schools where applicants are more likely to score a Varsity letter in Math Team than in a team sport. When you additionally factor in our low(ish) undergraduate population and alumni base size, we're doing pretty alright packing 40,000 into Bobby Dodd in this post-COVID era. I'm more miffed that we haven't figured out how to put 8,600 into McCamish - that should be very do-able.

We are outdrawing Cal, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc. Purdue has us beat but they also enroll double the undergraduate population (and I suspect their alumni count is somewhere along the same lines).

 

[yeti92]

GT attendance is down, on average, 14% from 2005. Average attendance 2005-2019 (the latest published figures available) is 48,039. It was 37,819 (estimated) in 2021, but that was COVID. The COFH game regularly pulls 55,000 ...

View attachment 17008

2020 (covid year): 11,000
2021: 37,514
2022: 34,408
2023: 36,322
2024 so far: 36,376 but thats a G5, FCS, and Duke since we let FSU be overseas (47,998) and with ND at MBS I would expect our average to not jump as much as it would have without those 2 being moved to neutral sites, even with NC State and Miami games still to play. Probably end up averaging around 37,500-38,000 for the year based on ~40k each at Miami and NCState

 

[stinger78]

Can JBatt get UGA to pay us even more to just have it in Athens every year? I am curious where the [financial] line is.

We haven’t beat them in BDS since 1999 - the last millennium.

 

[Vespidae]

2020 (covid year): 11,000
2021: 37,514
2022: 34,408
2023: 36,322
2024 so far: 36,376 but thats a G5, FCS, and Duke since we let FSU be overseas (47,998) and with ND at MBS I would expect our average to not jump as much as it would have without those 2 being moved to neutral sites, even with NC State and Miami games still to play. Probably end up averaging around 37,500-38,000 for the year based on ~40k each at Miami and NCState

Let's update the chart then. Using your figures, it's nearly a 30% drop in attendance since 2005. Is that a big deal? Perhaps not in an era of media payouts that we are in now.

 

[TooTall]

That's not giving Tech fans priority to buy tickets. It's giving season ticket holders priority seating ASSIGNMENT, which is a HUGE difference. The key phrase in the release is "seats for Georgia Tech season ticket members who purchase tickets". In other words, we're given priority after we've already bought tickets, but we're not given priority to actually buy tickets. If I had to guess, that's why season tickets won't include this game — because the number of season ticket holders exceeds Tech's guaranteed allotment in the deal (not to mention parents, band, etc.).

Tech season ticket holders are Tech fans. No mutt is going to buy season tickets when their game isn't included in it. We then pay for tickets, or buy them, before anyone else in the general public gets them.

 

[Lil G]

I really wish you guys would stop acting like the last 4 years of BDS attendance is a sign of a dying fan base.
That was sign of a gut wrenchingly bad football, not worth fans paying to watch in person.
We are actively clawing out, but expect BDS to fill as we win.
If we beat Notredame and VT, you can bet your a$$ BDS will be packed for Miami.

 

[LT 1967]

SI article below includes Coach Key's comments on UGA game at MBS. A brief comment, but he is supportive of the change.

MSN