LSU gamed moved to New Orleans Superdome

https://twitter.com/BYUCougars/status/902297988479021056



Bad news for the Cougars but not at all unexpected.

Called it! I am so important and know everything.

Don't be surprised if it gets moved again to Baton Rouge as Harvey moves northeast.

Worst possible move. Dallas would have been best for us.

byufan4ever wrote:

Worst possible move. Dallas would have been best for us.

Glendale would have been the best possible solution for BYU, outside of being at LaVell Edwards Stadium. But BYU is just happy to be allowed to play at all, and has absolutely no leverage.

hawkwing wrote:

Worst possible move. Dallas would have been best for us.

Glendale would have been the best possible solution for BYU, outside of being at LaVell Edwards Stadium. But BYU is just happy to be allowed to play at all, and has absolutely no leverage.

Well I don't think Glendale was ever in the picture. Of the 5 sites that I heard mentioned Dallas was the best. The others were Superdome, Nashville, Orlando and Jacksonville.

TulaneVandyRiceCoug wrote:

Called it! I am so important and know everything.

Well, its just what we would expect from someone who went to Vandy, Tulane, and Rice! :)

byufan4ever wrote:

byufan4ever wrote:

Worst possible move. Dallas would have been best for us.

Glendale would have been the best possible solution for BYU, outside of being at LaVell Edwards Stadium. But BYU is just happy to be allowed to play at all, and has absolutely no leverage.

Well I don't think Glendale was ever in the picture. Of the 5 sites that I heard mentioned Dallas was the best. The others were Superdome, Nashville, Orlando and Jacksonville.

I think the stadium had to be "related" to that group. I think the superdome, cotton bowl, and jerry's world were the closest and the cotton bowl is not NFL or able to gear up in time and jerry's world has MI vs FLA that day. I don't see why they couldn't make it a double header :). I think Phoenix is also part of it and I was hoping but you know LSU would never have gone for that.

imuakahuku wrote:

Called it! I am so important and know everything.

Well, its just what we would expect from someone who went to Vandy, Tulane, and Rice! :)

Hey now, like many others I learned much of my arrogance from BYU. I did grad school emphasis in Irrational Behavior from Rice. ;) (Which is probably flooded)

New Orleans was probably selected to ensure maximum possible ticket sales and revenue. It's only 1 hour from LSU at Baton Rouge, so they know they can sell tickets fast. With the game only 3 days away, they are probably trying to minimize lost $$$ from ticket refunds. Dallas would have been a great location too, but New Orleans was probably too tempting for them. LSU was probably never going to agree to a game which would have been more friendly for BYU fans vs LSU fans (aka Glendale).

I don't think LSU had anything to do with the location. They probably offered to host, but that's not as sexy for ESPN to market as a neutral site game at a NFL facility. ESPN probably prefers the Sugar Dome to Houston, to be perfectly honest. Per the game contract, ESPN and NRG were to use reasonable efforts to relocate the game in case of weather--LSU had no avenue for input in the contract.



If ESPN/NRG did that, i.e. used reasonable efforts and relocated the game, LSU has to play the game at the new location or forego the $4.5 Million payday, and they would probably have to pay BYU, ESPN, and NRG damages for backing out if they were all ready to go.

snoscythe wrote:

I don't think LSU had anything to do with the location. They probably offered to host, but that's not as sexy for ESPN to market as a neutral site game at a NFL facility. ESPN probably prefers the Sugar Dome to Houston, to be perfectly honest. Per the game contract, ESPN and NRG were to use reasonable efforts to relocate the game in case of weather--LSU had no avenue for input in the contract.



If ESPN/NRG did that, i.e. used reasonable efforts and relocated the game, LSU has to play the game at the new location or forego the $4.5 Million payday, and they would probably have to pay BYU, ESPN, and NRG damages for backing out if they were all ready to go.

ALL ticket sales for the game in Houston are being auto-refunded, and they weren't cheap. I recognize that the TV money is big, but being able to resale all those seats would definitely have been a high priority.



If it wasn't for the ultra-short timeline, I think the game would have have had a much stronger chance of being relocated to Dallas. But with only 3 days before kickoff, a location close to LSU was almost certainly the most attractive option for filling the stadium up. All the LSU fans can now attend the game without even having to worry about booking hotels, etc. last minute. The folks making the decisions want to see fans in the seats at a NFL venue, and New Orleans gives the best potential for the maximum fans in the seats, even if they will be even more heavily skewed towards LSU than before.



I didn't say anywhere that LSU was the major player in selecting the final game location, but they would have most certainly have balked at playing in Glendale, when there are options available in Dallas & New Orleans. ESPN & others definitely would have taken that into account, essentially eliminating Glendale. They would not show favoritism towards BYU vs one of the premier programs in the SEC.

While the decision was made by NRG and ESPN they definitely threw LSU a bone here. Of the 5 serious potential sites, Superdome was best for LSU, Dallas was best for BYU, and maybe Nashville and Orlando could have been viewed as showing no favoritism (I don't think Jacksonville was a major contender but they were contacted).



BYU SN looked at the weather forecast for each of these cities and Dallas had the best outlook. Only 20% chance of rain on game day with less rain the previous days than the other cities. Louisiana is starting to get a lot of rain now. Oh well.

byufan4ever wrote:

While the decision was made by NRG and ESPN they definitely threw LSU a bone here. Of the 5 serious potential sites, Superdome was best for LSU, Dallas was best for BYU, and maybe Nashville and Orlando could have been viewed as showing no favoritism (I don't think Jacksonville was a major contender but they were contacted).



BYU SN looked at the weather forecast for each of these cities and Dallas had the best outlook. Only 20% chance of rain on game day with less rain the previous days than the other cities. Louisiana is starting to get a lot of rain now. Oh well.

I think it came down to (1) proximity--getting the ESPN HD truck and game crew there (who, other than on-air talent) are traveling from the game in Indiana on Thursday), and (2) ticket sales.



No way Dallas beat NOLA on those metrics.

snoscythe wrote:

While the decision was made by NRG and ESPN they definitely threw LSU a bone here. Of the 5 serious potential sites, Superdome was best for LSU, Dallas was best for BYU, and maybe Nashville and Orlando could have been viewed as showing no favoritism (I don't think Jacksonville was a major contender but they were contacted).



BYU SN looked at the weather forecast for each of these cities and Dallas had the best outlook. Only 20% chance of rain on game day with less rain the previous days than the other cities. Louisiana is starting to get a lot of rain now. Oh well.

I think it came down to (1) proximity--getting the ESPN HD truck and game crew there (who, other than on-air talent) are traveling from the game in Indiana on Thursday), and (2) ticket sales.



No way Dallas beat NOLA on those metrics.

I understand the ticket sales part. On such a short notice it's probably the local LSU fans that will buy up the tickets.



Regarding proximity, I look at it two ways. 1) New Orleans is 348 miles from Houston while Dallas is only 242 hours. So for locals who were going to go to the game (if they're even able to get out of Houston), and LSU has a TON of fans in Houston (it's their largest alumni base), Dallas actually would have been a shorter distance to travel. 2) For the ESPN HD truck traveling from Bloomington, IN it's 803 miles to New Orleans and 873 miles to Dallas. Not that big of a difference so I don't really buy that. I can see it being made as an "excuse" but it's an extremely weak one. And Nashville would have been only 271 miles away.

Update: I saw posted online that BYU would have had a hard time getting their equipment to Florida on-time which would have made Orlando and Jacksonville difficult. Also, there is already a college game in Cowboys Stadium on Saturday, so they would have had to change the game date; unless they went for a double header!

byufan4ever wrote:

Regarding proximity, I look at it two ways. 1) New Orleans is 348 miles from Houston while Dallas is only 242 hours. So for locals who were going to go to the game (if they're even able to get out of Houston), and LSU has a TON of fans in Houston (it's their largest alumni base), Dallas actually would have been a shorter distance to travel. 2) For the ESPN HD truck traveling from Bloomington, IN it's 803 miles to New Orleans and 873 miles to Dallas. Not that big of a difference so I don't really buy that. I can see it being made as an "excuse" but it's an extremely weak one. And Nashville would have been only 271 miles away.

In case you haven't watched the news this past week, I don't think hardly anyone from Houston is going to be road-tripping anywhere--the proximity/logistics concern only related to getting truck/staff from Indiana to the new site. Proximity was probably used to rule out Florida/Arizona more than to pick between Dallas and NOLA.



If proximity is a tie between Dallas and NOLA, it comes down to tickets, and NOLA is a no-brainer on selling tickets with less than a week to game day.

Jarhead wrote:

Update: I saw posted online that BYU would have had a hard time getting their equipment to Florida on-time which would have made Orlando and Jacksonville difficult. Also, there is already a college game in Cowboys Stadium on Saturday, so they would have had to change the game date; unless they went for a double header!

The Dallas solution would have been to play at the Cotton Bowl, not at Cowboys Stadium.

snoscythe wrote:

Update: I saw posted online that BYU would have had a hard time getting their equipment to Florida on-time which would have made Orlando and Jacksonville difficult. Also, there is already a college game in Cowboys Stadium on Saturday, so they would have had to change the game date; unless they went for a double header!

The Dallas solution would have been to play at the Cotton Bowl, not at Cowboys Stadium.

Makes sense. Superdome trumps Cotton Bowl all day every day. Jerry (Jones) World is another story.

Dick Harmon:

Some sniping that BYU “didn’t do enough” to get the game in Dallas or even bring it to a dry, sunny LaVell Edwards Stadium is both ignorant and an exercise in fantasy.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865687796/Moving-BYU-LSU-game-so-fast-was-best-option-for-organizers-despite-cost-to-Cougar-fans.html