In a matter of time, college football could be adding one more neutral site game to the early season line-up. A group in Nashville is beginning to make a push to add a game in Nashville, Tennessee that would ideally feature one SEC team clashing with a relatively high-profile opponent.
“Music City Sports and Entertainment Group has been working on a significant college football event for Nashville, and we are about 60-90 days from making an announcement,” said Tammy Genovese, CEO of MCSEG according to a report by The Tennessean. The Music City Sports and Entertainment Group is targeting hosting a game in LP Field, the home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans. LP Field has a stadium capacity of 69,143 and 177 executive suites. The idea of the game would be to mimic the Chick-fil-A Kickoff that is played in Atlanta, with the hopes of becoming as successful and attractive for an early season neutral site game. As The Tennessean reports, Atlanta has seen $44.3 million injected in to the local economy since the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic launched in 2008. The earliest season a neutral site game in Nashville could likely be played is in 2016, so there is time to find a pair of schools willing to play a neutral site game at the expense of potentially losing a home game and for the financial details to be sorted. Concerns over the state’s occupational privilege tax on athletes are some of the issues standing in the way at this time.
Nashville currently is the host city for the Music City Bowl, which has conference tie-ins with the ACC and SEC. The bowl game has been played in Vanderbilt Stadium and is currently played in LP Field. LP Field also is the home stadium for FCS Tennessee State, so the Tigers would have to be on the road or serving a bye week. The Tennessee State schedule is far down the list of potential obstacles though.
Need a somewhat buzz worthy match-up? How about home-town Vanderbilt going up against former head coach James Franklin and Penn State? Penn State actually has a full non-conference schedule with games against Kent State and Temple scheduled at home and a road game at Pittsburgh, so it would be unlikely the Nittany Lions would have any interest in a Franklin Bowl in 2016 away from home. Vanderbilt also has three non-conference games already scheduled in 2016 with road games at Georgia Tech and Western Kentucky and a home date against Middle Tennessee. Vanderbilt may be more open to moving a home game to LP Field, and Middle Tennessee would bring in some more local interest but this is not quite the caliber of game the Nashville group may be hoping for.
Tennessee is out of the picture. The Vols will be kicking off with Virginia Tech at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2016. Alabama will be playing neutral site games in 2014 (vs. West Virginia in Atlanta) and 2015 (vs. Wisconsin in Arlington, Texas). LSU will face Wisconsin in Green Bay in 2016. Texas A&M will play Arizona State in Houston in 2015.