re: Potential for future kickoff game in the Dome

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Source tells me @LSUfootball will be paid nearly $5.2 million dollars for their appearance in Sunday night's game vs Florida State. #LSU

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Perhaps the biggest factor in the #LSU - FSU neutral site agreement, is the return the Tigers make next season to Orlando. If this were a home-and-home, #LSU doesn't get paid squat - maybe $500,000. Instead, they'll collect over $5 million again and again with no overhead.

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The more I read about this the harder it becomes to wrap my head around.

During the 2019 season, LSU collected:
- $37.7 million in ticket revenue
- $24.4 million in contributions (most of which is related to season tickets)

We had 7 home games. So that’s $5.4 million in ticket revenue and $3.5 million in contributions, for a total of $8.9 million, per game.

The football program received an additional $13.9 million in media rights. Assigning a value to each game is pretty difficult due to the way it’s disbursed from the conference and reported, but let’s say for the sake of argument that the vast majority of the $13.9 million came from the 8 conference games. That’s $1.7 million per game.

So playing a home/home series with FSU might result in a total of ~$9.6 million over two games, for ~$4.8 million per game. In reality the incremental revenue is lower - somewhere between $3.6-4.8 million per game - because the season ticket contributions aren’t actually collected on a per-game basis.

Operating costs aren’t as big of a factor as people think, considering our game day operating costs for all of 2019 were only $646k total ($92k per home game).

So LSU could collect $3.6-4.8 million per game playing a home/home (because we wouldn’t collect much for the game @ FSU), compared with $5.2 million per game at neutral sites. It’s easy to see why this is a good deal for LSU.

Here’s what I don’t understand: How the hell is it a good deal for the Sugar Bowl? If they’re paying LSU and FSU the same amount, that would be ~$10.4 million in guarantees paid by the Sugar Bowl, compared with ~$9.6 million (including media rights) that LSU would collect in revenue from a home game. Meanwhile, the Superdome seats 74k while Tiger Stadium seats 102k.

I get that ticket prices are probably higher but the stadium has 30% less capacity. AND the Sugar Bowl is eating the ~10% operating cost.

The only thing I can think of is that the media rights for this game must be worth way more than $1.7 million. The Sunday time slot might be the big difference maker. Either that or it’s an extremely lopsided contract, with FSU collecting a much smaller guarantee. I would believe that if it were just the one game in NOLA, but we are apparently collecting the same guarantee for the Orlando game as well.

What assholes keep downvoting posts about wanting to keep the home and home in the college stadiums where they belong? I’m so sick of some of you idiots.

Neutral site games suck. Somehow, LSU managed to survive for years playing big-time non conference games at home and away at campus sites before these neutral site games came along.

They are more profitable. LSU will net 5.2 million for the FSU game.

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Why are these neutral site games a thing again? What is the benefit of doing them instead of a home-home series?

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For recruiting

TV rights are based on the home team. Game in Tiger Stadium falls under SEC TV contract. Neutral site game in the Dome is open bidding. Add in the Allstate naming rights to the game, and the higher ticket prices, there's more money to distribute to the 2 teams. LSU would not get any extra share of SEC distribution for having 8 home games instead of 7.

It also provides no weather delays and AC to stay out of the heat. That being said,I’d still put up with the climate in Tallahassee and BR for a home and home.