tiderulz wrote:UCFJayBird wrote:tiderulz wrote:what is your definition of a "true road game"? I look at it as leaving the state. And yes, playing FSU in Jacksonville is a road game, no matter how much you might want to say it isnt. neutral games are absolutely road games. I'll give a little bit when it is in Atlanta vs a team from farther away. and look over our schedule the next decade. Neutral games to me are smart. Both teams generate money from the gates, the tickets are split in half. If the other team isnt as marketable, they get the benefit of playing Alabama. And EVERYONE wants Bama to lose, so they have more people rooting for them.
a true road game means another team has home field advantage. Now i'll grant you that neutral site games aren't always truly neutral. Example if Duke played UCF at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, that's a "neutral site" but it still favors UCF since UCF should have substantially more fans in the stadium simply because UCF fans don't have to travel as far. Duke being a smaller football school would also be unlikely to fill half CWS and UCF would be able to still have a substantial advantage in fan attendance.
So while I agree that Alabama playing in Jacksonville against FSU isn't as neutral as possible, it's far more neutral than playing in Tallahassee, as both teams split the tickets, as opposed to if it were at FSU and FSU had 90-95% of the stadium and gave Alabama the rest. You go from Alabama having 5-10% of the crowd (if that) to 35-50% (rough estimates, i'd be curious if there's actual data out there).
I think home field advantage is incredibly important in most sports and plays a huge role. So when you are able to turn 2 true road games into 2 neutral games, even if they're closer geographically to the opponent, it changes the dynamic and becomes a huge benefit and much more winnable.
sounds smart to me. again, why doesnt UCF look at those? open up an area for possible recruiting, be in the flashy game, get more attention/publicity? so what if it isnt in your home stadium, you get money for every game, not some money for a home game and then practically no money for the next year road game?
White has said he'd be open to a neutral site game, so long as it's not replacing a home game in a bigger series. Example being UF said they'd do a 2 for 1, but wanted the 1 at UCF to be at CWS, so it's really a 2-0-1 offer to UCF. The boys in the mainstream media never seem to pick up on that and make it sound like UCF is refusing a true 2 for 1 (which we probably would anyway, but that isn't even the actual offer, lol).
We had a deal a few years ago to do a four game series with Miami, 2 @Miami and 2 @UCF, but then the Citrus Bowl/CWS folks got into the ears of the people at Miami and convinced them that one of the UCF games should be @CWS so the deal fell through.
UCF is willing to play neutral site games, I just don't think a team has come along offering a true one game neutral site or a 3 game series with 1 being netural and 1 being at each other's home.
That's my understanding anyway. I'd be disappointed if White/UCF were just refusing to play neutral site games.