Interesting facts about neutral site games, mostly Bama related.

This is sort of a spinoff thread, since there was discussion about this in the Western Carolina thread.

Anyway, some interesting things I've learned about these neutral site games while reading about the subject:

-Clemson, not Bama, was the first team invited to the initial game. Bama got the second call from the Chick Fil A Bowl president (who put that game together) after Clemson was committed because of Saban's prior relationship with him from LSU's 2000 game.
The committee didn't want LSU because of 1996 attendance, but Saban convinced the CFA bowl president that he would promote the game and tickets would sell. The president overruled the committee and the game was a great success. UA-Clemson was also a great success. Now we get an invite to a kickoff game every year.

-Alabama and USC were initially going to play in Atlanta, after Chick Fil A arranged a matchup, but USC balked because they thought it would be too much like a Bama home game, so they played the Dallas game.

-The same exact thing happened with Oregon and Auburn for 2019. Chick Fil A prez set up the game, and Oregon balked.

-Washington was the only Pac 12 willing to travel so far, though, and will play AU in Atlanta.

-The Chick Fil A game always tries to schedule an ACC-SEC matchup if possible. Will probably be less common now that they host two. “For us, we want to get ACC vs. SEC when we can. It’s been successful for us, we’ve got huge alumni bases here, they need four non-conference games so it’s a little easier to schedule them. That was our bread and butter with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl until we went into the CFP.”

-The payouts are now up to about double the profit of a home game, so playing in two of them pays four times as much as a two year home and home.

-The payout is higher for the Dallas game than the Atlanta game. UF-UM received $1 million more each than UA-FSU, even though the latter was the bigger game.

-Our biggest payout so far was $6.5 million for USC. That was more than the $5 million received for FSU. Both were up from the $4 million received for Wisconsin.

-FSU's total costs for the game were estimated at $275k. I expect Bama's were similar, so the payout is almost all profit.

-Bama was paid more than USC for the 2016 game. (I'm almost certain it was $1 million extra, but I can't find the link where I read that to verify)

-Alabama has a contract with ESPN dated 9/10/2014 that we will not schedule a game that would prevent it from playing in the Cowboys Classic on 9/5/2020. ESPN and Alabama would have to "mutually approve" the opponent in the game. The contract states Alabama will receive $6 million guaranteed for participation. Also, it says Alabama will receive a minimum of $1,000,000 more than their opponent.

-Contracts with Chick Fil A for Atlanta include hundreds of free hotel rooms, tickets to the CFHOF, and a scholarship payment for the participating schools.

-Alabama contracts with the Cowboys include two free suites, 250 free tickets, and a field level club suite for 350 people. We can be replaced if we get hit with NCAA sanctions and lose 12 or more scholarships.
The Cowboy contracts must remain private, but since Alabama is a public institution and subject to open records requests, we must notify the Cowboys and ESPN if a request is ever received.