Georgia-Florida rivalry is the perfect case study for everything wrong with neutral site games

Traditions in college football are great. In fact, the many traditions each school has is what makes college football one of the greatest sports in the world.

Sometimes these traditions become outdated, and one of the best examples of that is the fact that Georgia and Florida still play at a neutral field every season. Sure there are some fans out there that probably enjoy this, but the vast majority would love to see these schools alternate playing at each campus instead.

That sentiment has never been felt more than right now after Florida just announced the $1.45 billion renovation plans for their football stadium.

Georgia and Florida are missing out on a great opportunity to play at elite venues

Sanford Stadium is one of the elite college football venues in the country. The Swamp in Florida is a solid stadium as well, but with these renovations it will join the elite tier of stadiums across the country.

Who wouldn't want to see these two teams battle it out in their home stadiums? Sure the stadiums are great, but it's the atmosphere that would be next level if Georgia and Florida started playing on their campuses.

Can you imagine how electric it would be if they played on their campuses for the first time since 1995? That could've been the case these next two seasons as their normal venue in Jacksonville isn't available due to renovations, but Florida and Georgia decided to play at a different neutral site instead of giving each team a home game.

Lame.

If Georgia and Florida didn't take advantage of these next two years to play on their campuses then they probably never will. And the biggest reason why it'll never happen again is the one thing that is really starting to annoy every college football fan.

Why Georgia and Florida will probably never play on their campuses again

There really is only one reason why Georgia and Florida will probably never play on one of their campuses again. Money.

Money has always been important in college football, but that is the case now more than ever in the NIL era. And what is one way that programs can bring in extra money that they can spend in their program? Playing neutral site games.

Georgia and Florida will reportedly both make $7.5 million to play their game in Atlanta this season. Their matchup in 2027 will be played in Tampa Bay where they will both reportedly make $5 million each. In today's day and age where schools have to have a lot of money to compete at the highest level, this annual paycheck is one that both Georgia and Florida will probably never be able to say no to.

Unfortunately for Georgia these neutral site games are becoming far too common as they just played Georgia Tech at a neutral site last year. They also canceled their home-and-home series with Florida State to replace it with one neutral site game as well.

There are approximately zero fans that are asking for more neutral site games. That is also about the amount of fans that want to see Georgia and Florida continue playing at a neutral site as well.

But what are Georgia and Florida going to do? Keep playing at a neutral site. And why is that? Because they are both too greedy to do what their fans prefer.

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