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Georgia agrees to keep the game against Florida in city of Jacksonville

So much for hoping to bring the Florida Gators to Sanford Stadium anytime soon.

On Wednesday, the University of Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors voted unanimously to renew a contract with the city of Jacksonville, Fla., to continue to host Georgia-Florida football game – a.k.a The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party – until at least 2017.

And that’s a shame. The Red & Black’s editorial board unanimously agreed the games should be played on the campuses of both Georgia and Florida for multiple reasons:

A) The game is essentially a road game anyway. It takes about six hours to drive to either Jacksonville or Gainesville from Athens and only takes Florida fans 45 minutes to head to the game. University President Michael Adams said Jacksonville has made travel easier for the Bulldogs by paying for three charted flights directly from Athens to Jacksonville.

But Georgia wouldn’t have to travel at all if the game was on campus every other year.

B) Both schools would see more revenue from hosting the game on campus. Sanford (92,746 seats) and Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (88,548 seats) hold more seats than Jacksonville Municipal Stadium (67,164 seats) which, in reality, is half that because the schools split the stadium in half.

C) Jacksonville is desperate. Within a few years, the Cocktail Party might be the only football played in Jacksonville all year. The NFL’s Jaguars – the only professional major sports franchise within 140 miles – cannot fill their stadium, despite cutting back the seating capacity to below 50,000. Barring being saved by a quarterback already in the state of Florida, the Jags are a strong candidate to move, most likely to Los Angeles, and could leave Jacksonville pining for football.

D) While the annual pilgrimage to St. Simon’s Island has been a tradition every year since 1933 – with the exception of 1994 and ’95, when the stadium was being renovated and games were held on campus – times have changed. The stadium is in poor condition and the city isn’t much better. And if athletic director Damon Evans believes that CBS still won’t televise the game at 3:30 every year, ask Michigan and Ohio State if they have problems getting their game televised.

Don’t think so.

To slightly alter a quote from Tennessee head football coach Lane Kiffin, “I’m looking forward to singing ["Glory, glory to Ole Georgia"] all night when we beat them in Gainesville.

“It’s gonna be a blast.”

And just wait until Florida comes to Athens, that will be a real blast.

- Michael Fitzpatrick for the editorial board

A stimulus for whom?

BOR decided to cut UGA’s money from the state to equal the federal stimulus check

The University received a $19.2 million bonus check from the federal government – an amount that exceeds our total deficit by $2.5 million. Instead of filling the gaping hole in our budget, however, we gave the state a leg up out of theirs.

Every last dime of that $19.2 million in bonus bucks went to personnel costs – to cover the salaries of administrators, faculty and staff.

The Red & Black editorial board fully supports this decision. Our ability to offer competitive salaries is absolutely critical to retaining the best professors.

But we strongly oppose the Board of Regents’ subsequent decision to cut exactly $19.2 million from our state funds.

Fantastic. We got money from the federal government – which the state would have paid anyway – only to have the state take it away.

Now we are right back where we started – except we let the state off the hook in funding personnel costs for July and August.

The universities of Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi and Arkansas all used at least a fraction of their stimulus money to fill in gaps left by their budget deficits, as reported on today’s front page.

Of course, we are no enemy of the state. We are happy to provide a little extra padding to our governing body. But we demand to know: where’s our piece of the pie?

- The Red & Black editorial board