📡 Here Are The Toughest Stretches For Each Team Next Season - Forbes

[TerryP]

In May 2010, Alabama and GaTech agree to postpone the 2013 and 2014 home and home. In 2013, Alabama cancels the home and home with Michigan State for the 16-17 seasons. If Bama felt that Duke and Penn State posed a risk to whatever plans Bama had for another national championship run in 2010, coach Saban would have done something about it. He did any other time.

So, you're saying Saban made the decisions about the GT and MSU games based on plans for a title run? Your sentence structure makes it read this way. In the same thought you're suggesting the 2010 schedule would have been changed if there was a perceived threat to a title run and at the same time pointing to two other teams and the stories that revolved around them. That's in spite of each story being different, not to mention well documented, and neither GT or MSU fit? "He did any other time" reads exactly that way when the two stories do not match your assumptions.

Then why not just crawfish out of the Duke game for the exact same reasons. Not only was Duke an away game, but the stadium also holds only 40,00 people. If you cancel the East Lansing trip cause there is no money in it, you definitely weren't making any in Durham. Truth is, the B1G went to 9 conference games in 2016 and the SEC looked for a while like they might be leaning that way. That is pretty much all there was to it.

Crawfish. Crawfish? Is this another case of trying to re-write history? Seriously, as stated earlier, the Duke game was in return for their trip here. I, as well as @252BAMA walked through that in this thread.

Now you're also repeating part of the story I wrote about earlier in this thread: conference schedules and the uncertainties that lay in the future. However, you're not mentioning the fact GT wanted something different because they were looking at UGA and UA in the same season. You're not mentioning they were thinking about their post-season. And, more importantly, you''re trying to put something at Saban's feet when it was Coach Moore "brain-child" in the first place.

How is Bama going to make any money in Austin and South Bend, and Morgantown?

May I suggest doing a little research? Read the agreements. As one example, Bama is receiving a tidy sum of 1 million for one of those away games and they'll (opponent) receive the same visiting Tuscaloosa.

If the best the Atlanta Sports Council can do is put perennial national champion Alabama against a middle of the road ACC team as some opening day college football extravaganza, they should be ashamed of themselves. People in Tuscaloosa didn't have to do this, they should also be ashamed of themselves as well.

Now this is just overboard. Alabama should be ashamed of a nationally televised game in the heart of the SEC's footprint when they are getting paid millions to play. Geez, bro. That's pushing common sense out the door, is it not?

It's my opinion a lot of the perceptions about how scheduling works is as understood as those who keep crying for defensive backs to turn their heads. In both cases, I see a lot of people talking without foundation or context.

 

[TerryP]

A lot of these discussions seem to have a lot of circular logic.

As example, several years ago the Alabama administration (as well as Auburn's) were receiving a lot of flak because of the season ending schedules. No one liked the idea of the teams getting a week off before the SECCG. So, that was changed and both teams added an OOC game the week prior.

Now, everyone is complaining about that OOC game. We're seeing "The Citadel?" Yet, all the while, ignoring that every P5 team had conference games last season sans one ACC team.

I don't like it this way. Change it.
I don't like it the new way. Change it.

It reads just like those in favor of the playoffs and changing that structure again...and look where that's taken the sport.

The circular logic fits with this Duke game. On one hand we've got a large number of people complaining about the cost of the tickets. On other hand, they're criticizing the decision to play Duke and one of the main points is ticket prices. "I can't afford to go to the exhibition season openers because they're too expensive!" Wait. "I don't like this game because it's a bad game...just look at the ticket prices" Dang, tickets that you can now afford but...

 

[TUSKtimes]

So, you're saying Saban made the decisions about the GT and MSU games based on plans for a title run? Your sentence structure makes it read this way. In the same thought you're suggesting the 2010 schedule would have been changed if there was a perceived threat to a title run and at the same time pointing to two other teams and the stories that revolved around them. That's in spite of each story being different, not to mention well documented, and neither GT or MSU fit? "He did any other time" reads exactly that way when the two stories do not match your assumptions.

Everything is done with a title run in mind in Tuscaloosa. That's why all those cupcakes appear all over the schedule each season in strategic locations. It's why we fought to get the unfair Byes off our schedule from opponents. It's what mostly is the driving force behind neutral site games and it's the reason coach Saban has all these tough things to say about 9 conference games, and playing no one but power 5 teams and yet nothing changes at Alabama. He's only interested in these things if everyone else has to do them too. It's competitive balance on the way to another NC that will always concern Saban more.

Now this is just overboard. Alabama should be ashamed of a nationally televised game in the heart of the SEC's footprint when they are getting paid millions to play. Geez, bro. That's pushing common sense out the door, is it not?

This is no stretch bro, this is a dying quail of a game. If you want to put this game in this time slot on opening day and have the fans excited at the possibilities of a new season than it immediately gets compared with all these other opening events we've traveled to. On the anticipation meter alone, Atlanta blew it and Bama blew it. Byrnes should have suggested they call the barners on this one and we go find something else to do.

 

[BamaFan334]

Everyone is concerned with attendance dropping in football, even Bama fans traveling to SEC games has changed:

Data obtained through open records requests shows UA has received 10,500 fewer tickets to away games against its regular home-and-home SEC opponents — Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Texas A&M — in the last two-year cycle than it did in 2013-14, and distributed 11,000 fewer to those teams for their visits to Bryant-Denny Stadium.
In short, the decrease from 2013-14 to 2017-18 for road games against those teams for Alabama has dropped 20.2 percent, and the decrease in tickets allotted to the same opponents for games at UA over the same period is down 20.75 percent. The reduction in ticket allotments reflects a lessened interest on the part of fans to travel.

“There’s something of a softening of the demand,” said Greg Byrne, Alabama’s athletics director.
The drop in travel for Alabama fans, and for fans of opposing teams for games in Tuscaloosa, mirrors a national shift in attendance.

Home and away
SEC schools allot an agreed-upon number of tickets to conference opponents that visit their stadiums. Alabama plays SEC Western Division opponents Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Texas A&M each season, with three of those games at home and three on the road. UA also plays Tennessee every year, with each team playing at home on an alternating basis.

A closer look shows that Alabama isn’t getting as many tickets to sell to its fan base. UA has reduced the number of allotted tickets for away games at six of these seven schools since 2013-14. Only the 6,000-ticket allocation for trips to Texas A&M has remained the same. UA has gone from taking 9,500 tickets to games at Auburn and Tennessee to 8,000 and 7,500, respectively, and dropped its number by 1,000 to 6,000 for the trips to LSU.
Likewise, Tennessee and Auburn have reduced their number of tickets for games at Alabama — from 9,500 (2013-14) to 7,500 (2017-18). Ole Miss and Mississippi State have reduced their allotment for away games at UA from 7,000 to 5,000. All seven of Alabama’s regular opponents now receive fewer tickets than they did just a few years ago.
The SEC doesn’t dictate how many tickets each team gets.
“You have to provide a certain amount of seats on the lower level, behind your bench, is what the rule is,” Byrne said. “I think that’s basically been a school-by-school decision as long as you follow those guidelines.”


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When fans don't show up as before and enthusiasm starts lessening for the product, these ADs and HCs are plenty worried about the future and will respond with change. It isn't just how well Bama fans make their way to Atlanta it's much more the excitement that keeps them coming back to BDS. I do believe Byrne and Saban got that message loud and clear.

Wish they'd offer me away tickets before the last minute.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Crawfish. Crawfish? Is this another case of trying to re-write history? Seriously, as stated earlier, the Duke game was in return for their trip here. I, as well as @252BAMA walked through that in this thread.

Sorry, Terry, I hit the reply button accidentally. I used "crawfish" in the possibility of getting out of the Duke away-game contract. It never happened as it did at other times. Don't be too insulted by "crawfish" the Spartan fans were using many more colorful adjectives to describe our motives a few years back.

May I suggest doing a little research? Read the agreements. As one example, Bama is receiving a tidy sum of 1 million for one of those away games and they'll (opponent) receive the same visiting Tuscaloosa.

If I do the math here, visiting teams get a million and they, in turn, give it back to us when we visit their place? That's it, that's all this consternation about home and home has been about, getting a "tidy sum of 1 million" and take turns passing it back to each other? How in the world did coach Saban not get that memo these last 12 years at Alabama?

I don't mind when you try to make these points, it actually shows us how everything moves in Tuscaloosa around how we got ourselves positioned for the BCS and now the playoffs during coach Saban's reign of terror. And for me personally, that's plenty noble enough. But as anyone can logically see, winning titles are most certainly the reason for the season.