Ken Sugiura, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — With Georgia Tech having sold its 2025 home game with archrival Georgia for $10 million, the next step is to hock the rivalry’s nickname for some more sweet, juicy cash.Just spitballing for Tech athletic director J Batt and UGA counterpart Josh Brooks – we can do much better than “Clean Old-Fashioned Hate presented by UPS.”Clean Old-Fashioned Hanes. (Gear suppliers Nike and Adidas may object, but that’s what lawyers are for.)Clean Old-Fashioned Hot Pockets. (Maybe they have a Thanksgiving leftover flavor they want to get to market.)Kleenex Old-Fashioned Hate. (No better product for losing fans to cry into.)Mr. Clean Old-Fashioned Hate. (A lot of creative possibilities with Brent Key.)Zestfully Clean Old-Fashioned Hate. (A perfect tie-in for a sweaty 3 1/2-hour scrum.)
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Georgia Tech-Georgia-Pacific. (It rolls off the tongue, and it’s even based in Atlanta!)Don’t tarry, gentlemen. You’re leaving money on the table. Those charter flights and name, image and likeness payments aren’t going to pay for themselves.Uga, powered by Purina.The Ramblin’ Wreck plastered with sponsor stickers like a racecar.The possibilities run the gamut.It’d be easy to take shots at Batt and Tech for their thirst for revenue. (He already has sold the name of the country’s oldest on-campus FBS football stadium; the Yellow Jackets now play at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field.) But if you were going to criticize college athletics for putting money ahead of the traditions that make it the unique and beloved entity that it is, you wouldn’t have time for much else.At its heart, Tech’s trip to play Florida State in Ireland wasn’t about giving college athletes a chance to travel overseas, even if it did. It was a tourism vehicle. When Georgia plays Texas in its highly anticipated matchup Saturday, what other reason is there for the Longhorns to be in the SEC other than revenue?College presidents presumably aren’t eager to contemplate what their approval of the new 12-team College Football Playoff, which extends the season for athletes to a possible 17 games, says about their priorities. But a six-year, $7.8 billion TV contract probably helps them sleep better at night.The Tech-Georgia game being moved off campus clearly was money driven, and credit to Batt for not pretending otherwise. But in terms of shirking tradition or prioritizing revenue ahead of the best interests of athletes and fans, it wasn’t even in the same ballpark (figuratlvely speaking) as the ACC adding Stanford, Cal and SMU or the Big Ten taking on Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.Tech will receive a $10 million payment from AMB Sports and Entertainment, a sum that is about five times what Tech would make from conducting the game at Bobby Dodd Stadium.For an athletic department in dire need of cash, it was a no-brainer, however distasteful it might have been to Tech fans.By the terms of a settled lawsuit against the NCAA, power-conference schools will be allowed to directly compensate athletes with NIL deals worth a total of at least $20-22 million annually. Those schools also will be on the hook for a back-damage settlement to past and former athletes for about $3 billion, which will shortchange Tech and other ACC schools of about $1 million annually in conference distributions.The terms of the settlement are expected to go into effect for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Tech’s budget for the current fiscal year is $137.8 million. Assuming a modest bump to $140 million for next year, that means Batt will have to account for a new expense that will consume about 16% of his budget, one that Key and men’s basketball coach Damon Stoudamire will be counting on to be fulfilled.Batt can carve expenses elsewhere, find new revenue sources worth several millions of dollars or both. It makes a $10 million payment for giving up one home football game rather enticing.In comments made Tuesday, Key understood. So does Tech Hall of Fame coach George O’Leary, who unlike Key was under no compunction to spout the company line.“I’m sure the fan base has a legitimate gripe, but I think administration-wise, they’re making the decision that’s best for Georgia Tech,” O’Leary told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Hall of Fame coach Paul Johnson, who knocked off the Bulldogs three times at Sanford Stadium, had a quintessential reaction.“I would rather have played in Athens,” Johnson wrote in a text to the AJC. “We seemed to do better there.”A brief history lesson. In 1957, Georgia was scheduled to play Texas (coincidentally enough) in Athens. However, before the season, Georgia coach and AD Wally Butts moved the game for financial reasons.The new venue?Grant Field.It was part of a doubleheader with Tech, which was to play Kentucky the same day. It was the second time that the two rivals organized such an event at Tech, much to the aid of the team from Athens.At the time, Tech was the dominant team in the state, regularly finishing in the top 10, winning eight consecutive games in the series and drawing bigger crowds to a larger stadium.Said Butts in a statement, “The University of Georgia athletic board saw fit to change the site of our game with Texas in order to help balance our athletic program budget.”There is nothing new under the sun.There’s an idea.Batt should ensure that the MBS roof is kept open and played during the day. That way, the game can be illuminated by the sun, presented by Georgia Power.
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