“It’s amazing to see how this program has done a complete 180,” Yellow Jackets receiver Clayton Powell-Lee said after a win over Syracuse in October. “It’s like a full-circle moment when they’re here.”
And yet, when arch-rival Georgia comes to Atlanta on Friday for what could be Georgia Tech’s biggest home game in decades, with national implications, the two teams will meet not at Bobby Dodd, but a few miles away at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where Georgia may have more fans.
Reason: Georgia Tech sold the game for $10 million.
This decision was taken more than a year ago. By an athletic director who is now gone. And before Georgia Tech took Georgia to eight overtimes, it was the closest it had come to defeating an opponent since 2016. And that’s before the Yellow Jackets spent this entire season competing in the College Football Playoff, setting it up as the most anticipated game in the series in decades.
The hype was diminished by Georgia Tech’s loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday, which sent its playoff and ACC championship hopes close to zero. Still, it’s a rivalry game between 10-1 Georgia and 9-2 Georgia Tech, and the home team just let it go?
The school appears to have no regrets.
Ryan Alpert, hired as Georgia Tech’s athletic director in July, said, “You can look back and say I wish it had been on Bobby Dodd. But I don’t think there were the same decision points and opportunities.” “The facts that they had at the time, and what they were trying to do with (coach) Brent (Key) and putting resources behind the program, this decision was made and taken properly at that time.”
Alpert did not make this decision – he was Tennessee’s associate athletic director – but he may support this decision now that he is in charge because the football program has $10 million to spend. Or to put it another way: The reason this year’s team is good is because of money.
Georgia Tech announced it would be moving the game to October 15, 2024, citing the need for “new revenue sources”. He knew revenue sharing was coming, meaning schools could pay up to $20.5 million to athletes in the 2025-26 school year, and most schools would pay the majority for football.
SEC schools, like Georgia, practically avoided that amount. However, Georgia Tech is part of an ACC that does not have a major television deal, and its struggles in football had ticket sales and donations at a much lower level than many of the programs competing for players and staff. Then-athletic director Jay Batt, now at Michigan State, decided that the Mercedes-Benz Stadium offer was a financial necessity.
Of course, things changed quickly. Key already had the program on a better trajectory. Then, a few weeks after the game went on sale, Georgia Tech upset then-No. 4 Miami at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Three weeks later came the epic game at Georgia, which, although a loss, still injected a lot of optimism into the program. Home attendance this year has been the best in years.
“Now we’re starting to get interest in Georgia Tech football from people who wouldn’t otherwise go here,” Key said in October.
Ki has been publicly supporting this decision. At ACC media day this summer, the first question he was asked was what factors led to the Georgia game being moved.
“They’re way above my pay grade. I could care less,” Key said, “We can go play them at Piedmont Park. I’m serious, we’ll go home tonight and play them at Piedmont Park at 5 p.m. I can’t say anything about where we play.”
And to be fair, Georgia Tech has actually played better against its in-state rival when it hasn’t been in Bobby Dodd Stadium: the last win over Georgia was in 1999. Georgia Tech’s previous four wins were in Athens, as was the near-miss last year.
This is an important time for Georgia Tech’s place in the sport, as Key and others at the school acknowledge. The uncertainty of the ACC and the overall college landscape beyond 2030 means the program must remain relevant. The success of the past two years is coming at the perfect time – but with quarterback Haynes King in his final year of eligibility, and the fleeting nature of success, it needs to be maintained.
Part of that is maintaining key, and Alpert said he’s working on that. And part of that is to give programs the resources to be competitive. Alpert talks about “creating a business model that can get us more recurring resources.” The construction of luxury suites, for example, may now be of greater interest.
Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King has scored eight touchdowns and five runs in his last four games. His eligibility expires after this season, which will change Georgia Tech’s chances in 2026. (Winslow Townson/Getty Images)
“We don’t want this to be a one-year, great year and then go backward over time,” Alpert said. “There’s going to be ups and downs in any program, but we want to be able to build a consistent, championship-level program. And so for me, that’s the head coach and what we’re going to do for Brent. So he and I talk about what’s important to him.”
There is also a new desire to be good at football at Georgia Tech as a school and fan base. When Angel Cabrera was appointed as school president in 2019, he emphasized this. Benjamin North, a Georgia Tech offensive lineman from 1978 to 1981 and now on the alumni board, agreed that there was a collective desire not to be left behind.
“I love Georgia Tech as an academic school, but it’s also a business, right?” North said. “Yeah, you have to survive. And you have to be good. And the money that comes through athletics helps do all the incredible things we’re doing around the world.”
This prevented backlash over selling out the Georgia game. But last month brought news on a similar front, showing concrete progress.
Mercedes-Benz approached Georgia Tech about a deal for next year’s game against Tennessee, the first half of a home-and-home series. This time it wasn’t for $10 million, but not much less, Alpert said.
Before jumping on it, Alpert sent out a survey to fans asking how many would buy a six-game season ticket package, and how many would pay for seven games, including Tennessee, at the extra cost.
Over 75 percent of the response was in favor of the seven-game package. So Alpert thanked Mercedes-Benz, but was declining the offer.
“We knew the fans wanted it, and then also seeing how we’ve been playing this year and the big numbers of fans coming out,” Alpert said. “We’re trying to build this program, and obviously Brent has done a tremendous job in football, so I’m trying to put every resource around him to be successful. And sometimes it’s not just monetary resources. It’s a great home field advantage.”
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