Over the past several years, college football fans have argued that the game is quickly becoming the NFL, with the transfer portal and NIL money ruining the amateur sport that they grew up with and wholeheartedly loved. Add yet another problem in college sports: neutral-site games.
The latest example is Auburn's decision to move its 2026 home game against Baylor to Atlanta and Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Aflac Kickoff Game. For athletic director John Cohen, he sees a chance to have a home-field advantage while also picking up NIL money that will go toward funding the team. In his mind, it makes sense. It's just a short drive to Atlanta for many Auburn fans, while there are already a large amount of alum living in and around Georgia's capital city.
The wheels have been spinning long before the introduction of those two aspects to college athletics. As early as the 1980s, matchups that would have been amazing on a college campus in a college atmosphere have been moved to bland NFL stadiums for the purpose of money. Athletic directors and their departments have seen the money signs flashed at them, and the enticement has been too much for them to ignore.
For those loyal fans with season tickets, it's a nose turned in the other direction. For the students, it shows that their support in one of the biggest and loudest student sections in college football is nothing compared to more money. For the businesses in Auburn and the surrounding area that depend on home games that bring in 100K-plus people, it's a "Sorry, We're Closed" sign sent from Cohen and the athletic department.
The almighty dollar outweighs the fans who make the game so special, contribute to scholarship funds, NIL, and fill the stadium every week, for the athletic departments. Their motives are strictly financial, which is somewhat ironic considering that they don't take into account what it will take for a family, a group of students, or even a single person to make the trip to Atlanta. There's no consideration for what a hotel room, parking and tickets, yes, the tickets that many have already invested in had the game been in Jordan-Hare Stadium as planned.
Considering the Tigers' track record over the past several seasons, it's not exactly the time to trigger your fans by pulling something off like this, no matter how much money your program and athletic department pull in.
Auburn fans have continued to make Jordan-Hare Stadium a haunted place to play despite four straight losing seasons. They traveled to Waco and made McLane Stadium sound almost like a home game, not to mention the trips to Berkeley, Calif., and elsewhere in the past.
For all of that, they have been continually slapped in the face, this latest one coming when they weren't expecting it. There had been talk of the Tigers moving the game to Atlanta, but the reasons were never made known. Now that Auburn fans have the reason (read: money over fan loyalty), Cohen and his staff will try to sell them on why they need to spend the extra money to come to Atlanta and watch the Tigers in an NFL stadium when one of the cathedrals of college football stands empty.
I'm not going to buy it, and neither should the thousands of season-ticket holders or students who have lost one more weekend on the Loveliest Village on the Plains.
As Jerry Maguire famously yelled, "Show me the money!" That should be written on the walls of the Auburn athletic department.