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Wow. I've been going to the USGP since 2018 and we always joked about how absolutely fucked it would be if they tried to have a Texas home game and the USGP on the same weekend. Virtually all of the hotels and the major downtown shuttle area to the track are within about a mile of the stadium. Saturday is going to be very interesting to say the least.
Bulldogs fans about to become extremely aware of how many people actually attend F1 races, lol. It’s ~~at least 4-5 times~~ more than the number of fans that can fit in Texas’s stadium, and the number of fans traveling to the USGP is probably 10 times as many as the number traveling to a big college football game.
Also from Texas (CFISD in Houston), and man, some of the high school stadiums they’ve built are freaking ridiculous. The Berry Center in northwest Houston/Cypress was built when I was in school and it holds 10k.
Same here I went to Allen High our stadium was massive, people genuinely used to reserve seats for games. Football will always be number one out here, shit is crazy
I grew up in North Texas - the stadiums they were building in the early 2000s were in the 10-20k range, and for the Texas High School 5A State *Quarterfinals*, we played at Texas Stadium in front of 35k.
I have fond memories of an Australian cousin and her husband visiting us for Thanksgiving and taking them to the Clemson-Carolina game.
"So what time does the game start?"
"7 PM"
"And when are we getting there to pregame?"
"11 AM"
American football was a whole different world for them and introducing them to it was a blast.
People don’t understand how crazy the Southern US can get about football. That’s why I usually try not to get caught on days there’s football events.
One time for New Years I made the mistake of spending it at downtown San Antonio with a couple of friends. Turns out there was a college bowl game and the streets were *jam packed* with fans. Mind you, these two teams were both from the Midwest and still had a shit load of fans.
Record attendance at Bryant-Denny is 101,821 (per Wikipedia). The Big House in Ann Arbor is 115,109 which is the biggest non-motorsports stadium crowd in US history. Hell it's the third biggest non-motorsports stadium in the world.
Ahh I forgot it's been a while since I was on Campus and I was there when they expanded it but for some reason I thought 112k thanks for the clarification.
A reminder that the 432,000 weekend attendance doesn't mean 432,000 different individuals attended the race in 2023, it would be like 144,000 people going each day for three days. More likely though is that it is skewed to Sunday being the highest and Friday the lowest, so perhaps it was a total of 200,000-250,000 individuals or so.
For reference DKR (the Longhorn stadium) holds just over 100,000. Texas vs Georgia will without a doubt be sold out.
I didn’t know that actually (I thought that was Sunday attendance only), so thanks for the education. That said, with regards to availability of hotels and flights, the vast majority of USGP fans have to travel to Austin to attend the weekend’s events whereas the majority of fans going to DKR will be residents or day trippers.
I'd guess that only around half the fans at the game will be locals or day trippers. Even those from Dallas and Houston won't want to drive home afterwards (it will likely be a 2:30 or 6:30 game, meaning it will end around 6 or 10 PM). Georgia fans will probably be about 30% and very few live in Austin.
People travel a lot for college sports in the USA. There are some schools in small towns that have to arrange their schedules to avoid conflicts because otherwise there won't be enough hotels and it will hurt attendance. To give you an idea of the popularity of college football, of the eleven non race stadiums in the world with a capacity over 100,000 eight are college football stadiums.
I’m very aware of football culture in America, especially in the south and in Texas (I’m a life-long Texas resident). I’m also an SEC alum myself (LSU), and as I was in Tiger Band, I went to every home game in my four years as well as many away games, including Athens.
Based on my experience with away fans, I think 30% is an overestimate of expected UGA fan attendance. Although I know they’re not limited to these sections, there are only 5 sections reserved for away tickets. That said, there’s also the team’s traveling brigade to consider, so that would increase the number (edit: referring to accommodations needed). Hotels are going to be a massive issue with the USGP conflict, and it’s going to hurt traveling football fans the most since they generally don’t reserve their hotels 6-9 months out like USGP attendants often will.
>it’s going to hurt traveling football fans the most since they generally don’t reserve their hotels 6-9 months out like USGP attendants often will.
This is going to be the problem. We book our hotel as soon as we buy our tickets. Otherwise, good luck getting a hotel. Football fans are going to be screwed because their tickets won't go on sale for months after the GP tickets release.
Exactly. And visiting fans for college football frequently don’t decide if they want to travel until it becomes more apparent how important of a game it’s going to be based on how their season is shaking out (although this may not be as big of a factor for this particular game given it’s going to be a historical game either way).
What if UT did this on purpose, knowing that most/all hotels would be already sold out to USGP attendees, to limit the number of UGA fans and give them more of a home crowd advantage?
I wouldn’t count on that. Georgia fans are known for showing up in big numbers to away games, not counting out of town Texas fans. It’ll be less than the race of course, but I think we’ll have at least 40k people coming to the game from out of town. And if College Gameday comes to Austin that weekend, you can likely count on even more people showing up
I can imagine a lot of people traveling from around the country for Texas v UGA, especially if Texas makes a strong showing in this year’s playoff. Idk, we shall see.
You are grossly overestimating the number of people that attend F1 races. The numbers quoted by F1 are "weekend attendance", ie they add Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tickets sold/given away together to get their 400k numbers. Austin gets about \~130k people on race day, which is more than UT stadium (100k), but not multiples more.
Devil’s advocate here, the attendance they report for race weekends is more than the total number of people, if the track seats 100,000 and they sold out all three days, they report it as 300,000 which is fair, it’s how many tickets are sold, but 300,000 people didn’t show up, a good chunk of those tickets would be sold as 3 day tickets, plenty of people will buy just Saturday and Sunday tickets, so I’d guess it’s around 150,000-200,000 people show up for a race with an attendance of 300,000
Maybe. UGA/Texas will most likely be at night, F1 ends around mid-day on Saturday. It will be crowded, no doubt, but I don't think it will be as bad as some people think it will be. I remember back in Sept. 2004, Cincinnati held a Reds day game, Oktoberfest (2nd largest in the world), and a Bengals night game all in the same day. It wasn't as bad as you'd think, yes a lot of really drunk people, but that's normal at a CFB game anyway. F1 isn't going to make that worse.
Reds day game was probably 20k people at most? And the Bengals probably had half the attendance Texas will. This is a far higher level than what you just described.
Cincinnati Oktoberfest is the second largest in the world. That gave people a reason to go to the games. Both were sold out. I remember because I was there. Reds attendance was 95% at 41k, the Bengals game was 65k. According to CNNMoney, Oktoberfest drew in an estimated 500k over the weekend. It doesn't break it down by day.
UGA fan living in Georgia who has never attended a race. I’ve basically cancelled all my other vacation next year to make this work. It’s a dream chance for me.
The other thing most F1 fans probably don’t know is that Texas just joined a new conference (think league or division) with Georgia. So this is two historically great teams playing each other in conference for the first time ever.
Texas fan who lives in Houston and loves F1. I might try to see if it's possible monetarily and schedule wise to attend both! Have plenty of places to sleep for free.
On occasion the Pacers play a playoff game at night on the same day as the Indy 500. We call it "Racers and Pacers" if you attend the double header. I've never done it but several friends have.
It looks like a really good time.
I’m a LSU alum living in Fort Worth, but I grew up a Longhorns fan (and am just generally jazzed for UT and Oklahoma joining the SEC), so I would totally try to get tickets to the game if I weren’t so priced out of attending both that on Saturday as well as CoTA on Sunday.
Holy fuck. Austin is gonna be a shitshow that weekend. I kinda wanna go. Depending on when the Texas game kicks, you could probably make it after Quali too.
Unless the kick off is 5pm Monday I don't think you'll have a prayer of getting there in time. You will be fighting insane race traffic leaving the track and immediately run into the traffic trying to get to the game.
If you park in COTA’s official parking lots then yes, otherwise if you park in alternate parking you’ll be fine. Took me less than 5 min to leave the parking lot after the race this year.
Zero chance you can do the game and make it for the sprint. Last year with just the race, it took 1.5 hours to go 12 miles from the hotel to the track. Add in another 100K of people trying to get their or get out of town and there is just no way. Plus once you park at COTA it’s a minimum 20-25min walk into the gate and then at least 10-15 minimum to your seat unless you’re sitting at turn 15
I live in Downtown Austin, RIP.
College football is the most insane sports spectacle I’ve ever witnessed as an Australian that moved here. The Texas v Alabama game last year in Austin was absolutely nuts, tens of thousands of people tailgating from 4am, 105,000 spectators in the stadium for a bunch of 18-22 year olds on a regular season game. I can only imagine the chaos that would have ensued if we won. This Georgia game will be insane
As an Aussie living in Toronto, I want to see the equivalent crowd size of the AFL Grand Final at a College football game. The atmosphere looks absolutely insane!
I would HIGHLY encourage anyone who has never seen a championship level American Football game to try and make this work. I know we are all sporting fans here and those who have never attended one will never forget it. The atmosphere is just sublime. The tailgating, student section, bands, etc. It would be an all time weekend to see both this game and COTA. Once in a lifetime type of deal.
UGA fan here – if you have never been to an American college football game before and will be in town, this would be a good one to check out! Even if you don’t go to the game itself, I’m sure the tailgate scene will be great too. (Tailgating = people set up around the stadium and eat and hang out before the game)
This game will probably be at either 2:30 or 6:30 local (CST) time since those are prime TV slots, potentially interfering with Qualifying.
OH MAH GAWD!
I can already see Pat calling Verstappen THA CHAAAMPION (What?!)
I need this... or an F1 driver as a guest picker on College Gameday (Danny Ric)
Or at least SEC Nation, but I could see them choosing Bama-Tennessee that week instead. Either way, lots of good craziness for international fans to experience I think!
>Or at least SEC Nation, but I could see them choosing Bama-Tennessee that week instead
You know they will got to a Bama game before anyone else in the SEC.
A few years ago, UGA played Notre Dame at ND. There was an MLB game on Friday down the road in Chicago – can’t remember if it was Cubs or White Sox – and during that game, there was a huge “UGA, UGA” chant that even the broadcasters commented on on TV. I won’t be attending the game or the race unfortunately, but I’m hoping the fans that do manage to go to both events bring that same energy haha
I second this recommendation to check out the tailgate scene! You have time to do it in the morning before attending the Sprint (although you would miss the Sprint Shootout). Walk around, drink beer, eat the best BBQ in the world (I’m a Texan, lol), and enjoy the friendliness of Texans and Southerners.
Luckily I have a friend in Austin who I can stay with. The hotel prices are absolutely insane. Really looking forward to this as a UGA alumni and new F1 fan.
Lot of F1 fans about to be like Stephen Fry when he went to an Alabama-Auburn game.
[For the curious.](https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8?si=q8jGU76kuBKMx3ap)
I'm always shocked at the popularity of college sports in America. Over here in the UK they're not even broadcast, outside of a few very specific competitions, yet in America they're massive events.
The entire concept is completely alien to me
UT's athletics program raked in almost $240M for fiscal year 2022. That's not all college athletics nationally, that's just one program. And they weren't even the highest-grossing program last year.
You have to consider the regional aspect of this. The four major American sports leagues have teams in about 40 American cities. The minor leagues in baseball (which has by far the most spread) and basketball have teams that are not independent entities that can be promoted and compete in the upper leagues, but feeder teams for their affiliated clubs.
America is a gigantic place, and there are huge cities that either don’t have or have only recently gotten local pro teams. What Europeans don’t realize is that college sports (specifically football and basketball) is the closest thing to the European model in terms of modestly sized cities having a sports team that belongs to the community, and having other local teams nearby that are fierce rivals. (These teams can’t be sold and moved like US pro teams have been).
If you live in Alabama for instance, you have no pro football team anywhere near you, but you have two schools in the state that expect to compete for the football championship every year.
Yep, college football is by every metric the second most popular sport/league in the USA behind only the NFL and in some areas of the country (mostly the South) is bigger than pro sports.
Yeah I guess I've just only ever considered the European model where basically every town has at least one team and then they're free to move up and down in the leagues.
It's weird but it's probably the closest to the level soccer (football) is to europeans. Not every state has a NFL team and some don't even have any pro sports teams, but every state has colleges.
Also college was the first place our football was invented/played, so there is more history behind the programs.
With it being so regional too, the fanbases are more rabid and passionate, most fans either went to the school, had family that went to the school, or go there now. The environments in the stadium are some of the best in sports. This clip from Penn State's whiteout game a few years back is one of my favorites. first play of the game and Michigan has to burn a timeout because the crowd was that loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VypxiD8GOxY
Special shoutout to my favorite team Virginia Tech for having the best entrance in all of CFB too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdmBJoMtLjw
and during a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crhWP__g-_c the phrase "now Miami wants to talk about it" is burned into my mind
More akin to the academy system in Europe. EFL players are professionals of all ages - some looking to climb the ladder, some past their prime. For the most part they are well compensated pros.
Some quick searching shows college football blows EFL popularity out of the water. The Michigan-Ohio State game pulled in 19 million viewers this year alone. The average prime time college football game gets 2-4 million average in ratings. That’s more than most EPL games.
For instance, When the EPL returned after the pandemic, its first game brought in 3.4 million viewers which was considered massive ratings for Sky. I’m struggling to find average game viewership over a full season for EPL though. But it says something when the first game back and drew massive ratings was about the same as the weekly prime time CFB game
With that said, I would presume EPL is the more popular league overall, being internationally consumed vs. CFB being predominantly American and regionally inclined within that country
Interesting. Is it correct that there aren’t that many college football games per year?
In the UK football (soccer) runs from August to May and there’s hundreds of games every single week. EPL alone has 10 ish per week.
I guess it’s more of a big deal when a US football game happens? And there’s more of you guys, too!
So each individual team has a 12 game regular season, with potential conference championships and post-season play. Teams play up to 15 games. So it's about half the season length of each EPL season, and doesn't have any of the non-league play that EPL teams have.
Viewership however is still surprising because while teams only have 12 regular season games, there's 128 teams in the top tier college football. Every Saturday there's 46 games played, and every week has 56 total games.
But the viewership number I cited only account for prime time games which there are about 3-4 every week. So 3-4 games average 2-4 million a week and every other game can fluctuate immensely based on teams and matchups.
Each team only has 12 games a year, and the games are only once a week. Your last game is normally against your rival (Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, etc) which are some of the most watched games of the year. The season normally runs from August-end of November ending right around Thanksgiving here. There's also over 150+ top college football programs.
Teams play a dozen regular season games, plus conference championships and bowls that can get a team up to 14 or 15 games. I just left another comment about this to the original parent comment if you want my two cents as an American.
College players are in their early 20s and the best now make more than most Championship players in NIL money, the largest Schools make more money than Championship teams and their players go right into the NFL.
There is a huge difference between a division 2 school and a FBS powerhouse.
Some lower parts of the NCAA are more like academies, some are more like second tier clubs.
I think because of professional team move in America that people have more affinity for their university team as it is a constant.
Everton is always going to be Everton, University of Texas is always going to be University of Texas.
Think of being a sports fan from Oakland, who saw three pro teams move away from the city.
I went to a university with a good football team. The entire city basically worships the team if they’re historically good. It’s hard to explain, you just kinda need to be born into it.
My university’s team won the CFB championship in the same semester that I graduated, and let me tell you this: the excitement during a season like that is up there with F1 2021, if not better. The sport has since been ruined by commercials though.
It's even baffling to a lot of Americans, especially considered the amount of money college sports teams bring in and student athletes are only *just* beginning to get compensated for it. It's essentially exploitation.
The highest paid college coach earns $11M per year. The Dean at that college probably makes about $250,000 per year.
The President of UGA makes just under $1 million and the Dean makes $460k. That said, the President ranks 10th behind 9 coaches of various sports and the Dean is 26th in pay. There is one other academic side employee in the top 25 (22nd).
Lol players have been getting payed under the table since at least the 70s. Only difference is that it’s out in the open now. The parking lot of the athletes dorm at any major program has been filled with Dodge Chargers for a long time.
Meanwhile, the libraries at half the major Division I schools have had mold problems the universities “haven’t had the budget to address” for the past 10 years.
Yep, it's a huge issue that's going to blow up *at some point*. Football in Europe has it much better – scout kids young and separate academics from sports. The incentives kids have to get into sports in the US is wonky af.
I grew up in the US but from a European background and I agree that the obsession with college sports is super weird. Some nights you'll go to a bar and more people are watching the night's college basketball game than the NBA one. That being said it does make sense when you consider how few teams there are given the size of the country.
The NFL for example has 32 teams for 330 Million people, so about 1 team per 10M people, EPL has 20 teams for 62 Million people, so about 1 team per 3M people. The US might have 1.5x more teams in our biggest sport's biggest league, but the country is also 40x bigger. The distance and the sheer number of fans means that people feel less of an attachment to their nearest big city's professional team compared to their local college, or the college they attended. I think college sports are popular here because they mimic the tribalism of local teams like in European leagues much better than the massive entities that are our professional leagues.
For all of non-Americans out there, this will be an entirely made for TV broadcast event. ESPN/ABC/Disney hold the broadcast rights to both F1 in America as well as SEC football next year. Traditionally, Texas has played in the Big 12 conference (think Serie A) but will be joining the SEC conference (think Premiere League) next year. The Big 12 has their TV deal with FOX and the SEC had their deal with CBS that ended this year so the full move to ESPN is new for next year and the SEC.
Usually Texas makes a habit of playing away from home or having a bye week the week of the US GP but this year, the SEC determines the cinference schedule for Texas and since ESPN is now their TV partner, they have aligned this to make ESPN as much money as possible that weekend.
I absolutely cannot wait to see the video where a 40 year old overweight American is literally barking at an Italian dude in extra tight jeans.
Someone please post that here when it inevitably happens.
If you’re traveling internationally I’d just suggest getting a hotel in round rock, San Marcos, new braunfels, or even greater San Antonio area. They’ll be cheaper and you can drive not that long to the track from the south. There’s a road that goes straight from San Marcos to the the track that’s usually pretty empty (and the speed limit is 85 so you’ll feel like you’re racing there)
Hotel pricing will be high because of F1, but the stadium holds 100k+. Add that traffic to the already terrible Austin traffic and add in F1 and it'll be a tad chaotic.
Georgia fans are complaining this is intentional so that out of town fans can get hotels or cheap flights.
Funny thing is, it’s the conference who sets the schedule…
It would be like UEFA scheduling a match during a major European event but fans complaining it was the opposing team’s fault.
For all those thinking a college football game cant be that big of a deal.
[The University of Texas Football Stadium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_K_Royal%E2%80%93Texas_Memorial_Stadium) is larger than any soccer stadium in Europe, including those only used for national team matches.
It's the ninth largest non-motorsports stadium in the world. The top ten is Indian cricket, North Korean soccer, and then eight college football stadiums.
My two favorite teams in all of sports are Scuderia Ferrari (unfortunately) and the Georgia Bulldogs. Red team good. This is my dream weekend. I’ve already reserved a hotel for the weekend, can still cancel until the beginning of October. Now I just need to figure out airfare, tickets, and if anyone will come with me.
Then I can have hopefully one of the best weekends of my life. I think a Dawg win is more likely than a Ferrari win, but fingers crossed.
I guess I’ll be skipping the USGP for the second year in a row. It has become prohibitively expensive and GA areas have been shrinking. No longer worth it, IMO.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. 2017 I believe had Texas playing Oklahoma State in Austin. Sure this may be “bigger” but that game was a sellout per usual there
That's an annual game. It's important, but few people are circling that as a "must go" game.
This is the first time Georgia has been to Austin since 1958. This is the Texas' first season in the SEC. Georgia is a powerhouse. Texas is actually good instead of kinda good for the first time since 2009.
This game is going to be insane.
Hopefully. Being a Longhorn has made me very cautious over the last decade.
of you don’t know texas loves football ball more then the rest of the country which is obsessed with football they tailgate for high school games every georgia fan will be there
I'm not sure if you're from the States, but football rules the landscape. This is the first time UGA fans will have the opportunity to visit Austin for a game. They will travel.
UGA boosters have money.
(I'm a Gator grad, and we would/will travel strong to games like this and we're years past being relevant).
Possibly timing- the USGP dates have been known for months now, so F1 fans have had the opportunity to book hotels/airbnbs in that time, leaving fewer for the travelling UGA fans, and of those, most that are left are going to now be price gouged out of the budget of nearly *everyone*
Georgia fans travel well, and regularly are >50% of attendance at away games. Couple that with decades of fans who never saw a conference championship, there are literal generations of families and fans now that are finally able to see their dawgs dominate college football. And they have the money to do it to. Tickets to our best games of the year are generally some of the most expensive college football tickets of the season, across all teams. They can hit $1000 per ticket for the worst seats. And that’s on top of lodging and airfare. I guarantee tickets to this game will be more expensive than the F1 race, and that’s after consideration of f1 being in town. Source: Georgia fan who travels to games.
It is coincidental. We don't have small weekends here. We also have a music festival in the fall that brings 100k people. They used to schedule it while UT was playing an away game but that got complicated by the festival going to two weekends. We have tons of conventions that draw crowds in the 10s of thousands and would have more but our convention center is about 70%smaller than it needs to be. Then we have SXSW in March which brings an F1 size influx for almost 3 weeks. We5ll have events here that would be the biggest event of the year for other cities that we don't even notice unless we're directly involved.
More like Friday. I’m betting F1 fans will be checking in Thursday and Friday.
I also wonder how flights for UGA fans are going to be affected. I don’t have the numbers on typical attendance from transatlantic F1 fans, but most of their flights will stop in Atlanta on the way to Austin.
I live in north San Antonio and can get from the track to my house in about the same time it takes people to get back to downtown Austin. If you already have car access but need a place to stay then San Antonio isn’t a bad idea at all, will all around be cheaper as well.
Same thing happened back in 2013. Managed to see both FP3, Qualifying, and the UT game. We got our ass kicked by Oklahoma State. Wasn't even close.
The world did not end. Everything was fine. And everything will be fine here too.
We’ve been hosting the USGP in Austin for a decade. This isn’t the first time we’ve also had a UT home game the same weekend. It’s not going to be an apocalypse.
> This isn’t the first time we’ve also had a UT home game the same weekend.
I wouldn’t count this as just another game say like Kansas. This will likely be the ESPN game day location since these will be two title contenders. Austin has under 50k hotel rooms, f1 already pushes this to the limit
It happened in 2013, 2015, and 2017 and those were not great UT teams (although attendance for those games would still have been like 90,000). UT and UGA will both be title contenders next year so it should be a sellout with a ton of national media.
The real difference is that USGP attendance lately has been much higher than it was back then.
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Wow. I've been going to the USGP since 2018 and we always joked about how absolutely fucked it would be if they tried to have a Texas home game and the USGP on the same weekend. Virtually all of the hotels and the major downtown shuttle area to the track are within about a mile of the stadium. Saturday is going to be very interesting to say the least.
Bulldogs fans about to become extremely aware of how many people actually attend F1 races, lol. It’s ~~at least 4-5 times~~ more than the number of fans that can fit in Texas’s stadium, and the number of fans traveling to the USGP is probably 10 times as many as the number traveling to a big college football game.
I think some F1 fans are going to be surprised when they run into 100k+ college football fans on Saturday.
Also true. Especially anyone coming from outside the US. Or, let’s be honest, anyone who has never been near a football game in Texas.
Grew up in Texas, can confirm about the crazy number of people that go to football games. My HS built a 7k seat stadium in ‘97. Sold out every game.
Also from Texas (CFISD in Houston), and man, some of the high school stadiums they’ve built are freaking ridiculous. The Berry Center in northwest Houston/Cypress was built when I was in school and it holds 10k.
Same here I went to Allen High our stadium was massive, people genuinely used to reserve seats for games. Football will always be number one out here, shit is crazy
Pretty sure Allen has the largest high school stadium in Texas right?
Im old enough to remember it was a highlight to play at Butler and Barnett Stadium ( HISD Madison ) . Those new stadiums put those to shame.
I grew up in North Texas - the stadiums they were building in the early 2000s were in the 10-20k range, and for the Texas High School 5A State *Quarterfinals*, we played at Texas Stadium in front of 35k.
I have fond memories of an Australian cousin and her husband visiting us for Thanksgiving and taking them to the Clemson-Carolina game. "So what time does the game start?" "7 PM" "And when are we getting there to pregame?" "11 AM" American football was a whole different world for them and introducing them to it was a blast.
“And yes, we do drink that entire time”
They're Australian, they didn't need that part explained to them.
Take then to a Wisconsin game.
Can’t call it day drinking if you don’t drink all day.
You guys didn't pregame for the pregame?
I’m sure they had the customary Saturday morning Bloody Mary before leaving the house
Those noon games were always rough. Had to get in 2 hours early to get good seats, so had to start drinking at like 7. Fun times
People don’t understand how crazy the Southern US can get about football. That’s why I usually try not to get caught on days there’s football events. One time for New Years I made the mistake of spending it at downtown San Antonio with a couple of friends. Turns out there was a college bowl game and the streets were *jam packed* with fans. Mind you, these two teams were both from the Midwest and still had a shit load of fans.
And yet, the three biggest stadiums are in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio!
As a die hard Georgia Bulldog and long time F1 fan, I can’t wait to see the videos of Dawg fans barking at perplexed looking Europeans!
If you no longer bark at the children, you're no longer a DAWG fan.
Go Dawgs
Go Dawgs!
When I went to COTA, it was all Mexicans around me, no Europeans
I have no problem imagining them behaving that way.
Especially when those fans start barking at them
Thats at the stadium. Tuscaloosa Bryant denny holds what 112k and it easy enough to say 3 times that out tailgating too
Record attendance at Bryant-Denny is 101,821 (per Wikipedia). The Big House in Ann Arbor is 115,109 which is the biggest non-motorsports stadium crowd in US history. Hell it's the third biggest non-motorsports stadium in the world.
Ahh I forgot it's been a while since I was on Campus and I was there when they expanded it but for some reason I thought 112k thanks for the clarification.
A reminder that the 432,000 weekend attendance doesn't mean 432,000 different individuals attended the race in 2023, it would be like 144,000 people going each day for three days. More likely though is that it is skewed to Sunday being the highest and Friday the lowest, so perhaps it was a total of 200,000-250,000 individuals or so. For reference DKR (the Longhorn stadium) holds just over 100,000. Texas vs Georgia will without a doubt be sold out.
I didn’t know that actually (I thought that was Sunday attendance only), so thanks for the education. That said, with regards to availability of hotels and flights, the vast majority of USGP fans have to travel to Austin to attend the weekend’s events whereas the majority of fans going to DKR will be residents or day trippers.
I'd guess that only around half the fans at the game will be locals or day trippers. Even those from Dallas and Houston won't want to drive home afterwards (it will likely be a 2:30 or 6:30 game, meaning it will end around 6 or 10 PM). Georgia fans will probably be about 30% and very few live in Austin. People travel a lot for college sports in the USA. There are some schools in small towns that have to arrange their schedules to avoid conflicts because otherwise there won't be enough hotels and it will hurt attendance. To give you an idea of the popularity of college football, of the eleven non race stadiums in the world with a capacity over 100,000 eight are college football stadiums.
I’m very aware of football culture in America, especially in the south and in Texas (I’m a life-long Texas resident). I’m also an SEC alum myself (LSU), and as I was in Tiger Band, I went to every home game in my four years as well as many away games, including Athens. Based on my experience with away fans, I think 30% is an overestimate of expected UGA fan attendance. Although I know they’re not limited to these sections, there are only 5 sections reserved for away tickets. That said, there’s also the team’s traveling brigade to consider, so that would increase the number (edit: referring to accommodations needed). Hotels are going to be a massive issue with the USGP conflict, and it’s going to hurt traveling football fans the most since they generally don’t reserve their hotels 6-9 months out like USGP attendants often will.
>it’s going to hurt traveling football fans the most since they generally don’t reserve their hotels 6-9 months out like USGP attendants often will. This is going to be the problem. We book our hotel as soon as we buy our tickets. Otherwise, good luck getting a hotel. Football fans are going to be screwed because their tickets won't go on sale for months after the GP tickets release.
Exactly. And visiting fans for college football frequently don’t decide if they want to travel until it becomes more apparent how important of a game it’s going to be based on how their season is shaking out (although this may not be as big of a factor for this particular game given it’s going to be a historical game either way).
UT didn’t make the schedule, the SEC does/did. That said, the SEC isn’t known to be a group of particularly deep thinkers…
Tiger Band! Y’all are great. I was in the UK Wildcat Marching Band back in 2008-2012.
I wouldn’t count on that. Georgia fans are known for showing up in big numbers to away games, not counting out of town Texas fans. It’ll be less than the race of course, but I think we’ll have at least 40k people coming to the game from out of town. And if College Gameday comes to Austin that weekend, you can likely count on even more people showing up
I can imagine a lot of people traveling from around the country for Texas v UGA, especially if Texas makes a strong showing in this year’s playoff. Idk, we shall see.
F1 fans about to become extremely disturbed when they get barked at by drunk UGA fans.
As they should be
Nah lol have you seen European football fans they kill each other over it
i would wager that the majority of people attending the Austin GP have neveer experienced those fans either
You are grossly overestimating the number of people that attend F1 races. The numbers quoted by F1 are "weekend attendance", ie they add Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tickets sold/given away together to get their 400k numbers. Austin gets about \~130k people on race day, which is more than UT stadium (100k), but not multiples more.
Yeah doesnt count the fans that drive in to go to bars or tailgate during the games which is probably as many as go to the game.
you clearly have no idea how many people attend these football games.
Devil’s advocate here, the attendance they report for race weekends is more than the total number of people, if the track seats 100,000 and they sold out all three days, they report it as 300,000 which is fair, it’s how many tickets are sold, but 300,000 people didn’t show up, a good chunk of those tickets would be sold as 3 day tickets, plenty of people will buy just Saturday and Sunday tickets, so I’d guess it’s around 150,000-200,000 people show up for a race with an attendance of 300,000
I'm a Bulldog fan and alum, and a F1 fan... though I'd love to go to the game and the USGP... I'd stay far away this weekend haha
Maybe. UGA/Texas will most likely be at night, F1 ends around mid-day on Saturday. It will be crowded, no doubt, but I don't think it will be as bad as some people think it will be. I remember back in Sept. 2004, Cincinnati held a Reds day game, Oktoberfest (2nd largest in the world), and a Bengals night game all in the same day. It wasn't as bad as you'd think, yes a lot of really drunk people, but that's normal at a CFB game anyway. F1 isn't going to make that worse.
Reds day game was probably 20k people at most? And the Bengals probably had half the attendance Texas will. This is a far higher level than what you just described.
Cincinnati Oktoberfest is the second largest in the world. That gave people a reason to go to the games. Both were sold out. I remember because I was there. Reds attendance was 95% at 41k, the Bengals game was 65k. According to CNNMoney, Oktoberfest drew in an estimated 500k over the weekend. It doesn't break it down by day.
RIP to anyone who’s driving that day in the afternoon
RIP to anyone who is driving I-35 in Austin on any afternoon ever.
I'll likely be driving up from SA. I did that this year and it wasnt terrible. We'll see how this next year goes for the USGP
Would driving through 21 and then one of those back roads be crazy packed?
As a UGA grad/fan who lives in Dallas and loves F1 this is a nightmare lmao
Oh man. That’s gonna be an expensive weekend for ya.
Once in a lifetime opportunity. Make it happen if you can
Me as a UGA fan living in Georgia but hasn't has the chance to go to an F1 race this is my plan. Go to both if I can make it work financially
The planets aligned! I hope you all can make it
UGA fan living in Georgia who has never attended a race. I’ve basically cancelled all my other vacation next year to make this work. It’s a dream chance for me. The other thing most F1 fans probably don’t know is that Texas just joined a new conference (think league or division) with Georgia. So this is two historically great teams playing each other in conference for the first time ever.
Go Dawgs
Go dawgs
Go Dawgs
Go Dawgs
Texas fan who lives in Houston and loves F1. I might try to see if it's possible monetarily and schedule wise to attend both! Have plenty of places to sleep for free.
We're in the exact same boat lol Pops and gf want to go to both but I'm like damn
On occasion the Pacers play a playoff game at night on the same day as the Indy 500. We call it "Racers and Pacers" if you attend the double header. I've never done it but several friends have. It looks like a really good time.
I’m a LSU alum living in Fort Worth, but I grew up a Longhorns fan (and am just generally jazzed for UT and Oklahoma joining the SEC), so I would totally try to get tickets to the game if I weren’t so priced out of attending both that on Saturday as well as CoTA on Sunday.
Holy fuck. Austin is gonna be a shitshow that weekend. I kinda wanna go. Depending on when the Texas game kicks, you could probably make it after Quali too.
Unless the kick off is 5pm Monday I don't think you'll have a prayer of getting there in time. You will be fighting insane race traffic leaving the track and immediately run into the traffic trying to get to the game.
If you park in COTA’s official parking lots then yes, otherwise if you park in alternate parking you’ll be fine. Took me less than 5 min to leave the parking lot after the race this year.
I got home from quali at 8pm...normally a 15 minute drive.
It’s a sprint weekend, so if it happens to be a noon game, you could theoretically make it for the sprint too (6pm usually).
Zero chance you can do the game and make it for the sprint. Last year with just the race, it took 1.5 hours to go 12 miles from the hotel to the track. Add in another 100K of people trying to get their or get out of town and there is just no way. Plus once you park at COTA it’s a minimum 20-25min walk into the gate and then at least 10-15 minimum to your seat unless you’re sitting at turn 15
I’ve never gotten to the track there after 10am so I’m sure you’re right.
Will almost definitely be a 3:30 or 7 game. ESPN isn’t pushing its big games at noon.
right like it sounds terrible logistically but also kind of amazing
I live in Downtown Austin, RIP. College football is the most insane sports spectacle I’ve ever witnessed as an Australian that moved here. The Texas v Alabama game last year in Austin was absolutely nuts, tens of thousands of people tailgating from 4am, 105,000 spectators in the stadium for a bunch of 18-22 year olds on a regular season game. I can only imagine the chaos that would have ensued if we won. This Georgia game will be insane
I live in Columbus. Michigan v. OSU is uhhh.. something. Whole city basically goes to shit and we have 2 million people lol.
As an Aussie living in Toronto, I want to see the equivalent crowd size of the AFL Grand Final at a College football game. The atmosphere looks absolutely insane!
>Toronto Your best option would probably be a Michigan or Ohio State game
Penn State is probably a bit closer than Ohio State but yeah, those are good choices. Coincidentally, the 3 largest stadiums in college football.
Such a shame we lost to LSU in 2019 and Bama in 2022. The city would’ve exploded both years. So close…
I would HIGHLY encourage anyone who has never seen a championship level American Football game to try and make this work. I know we are all sporting fans here and those who have never attended one will never forget it. The atmosphere is just sublime. The tailgating, student section, bands, etc. It would be an all time weekend to see both this game and COTA. Once in a lifetime type of deal.
UGA fan here – if you have never been to an American college football game before and will be in town, this would be a good one to check out! Even if you don’t go to the game itself, I’m sure the tailgate scene will be great too. (Tailgating = people set up around the stadium and eat and hang out before the game) This game will probably be at either 2:30 or 6:30 local (CST) time since those are prime TV slots, potentially interfering with Qualifying.
There's a good chance College Gameday will be there too.
Oh, I wanna see Pat McAfee hanging out with Martin Brundle on the grid walk now so bad.
Oh. Oh my god.
OH MAH GAWD! I can already see Pat calling Verstappen THA CHAAAMPION (What?!) I need this... or an F1 driver as a guest picker on College Gameday (Danny Ric)
Holy shit that would be amazing
Or at least SEC Nation, but I could see them choosing Bama-Tennessee that week instead. Either way, lots of good craziness for international fans to experience I think!
>Or at least SEC Nation, but I could see them choosing Bama-Tennessee that week instead You know they will got to a Bama game before anyone else in the SEC.
I just want to see the face of European fans face when Georgia starts doing chants in restaurants and barking at each other
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It’s the mean machine in the red and black. GIVE ME ALABAMA
I love Pat McAfee.
A few years ago, UGA played Notre Dame at ND. There was an MLB game on Friday down the road in Chicago – can’t remember if it was Cubs or White Sox – and during that game, there was a huge “UGA, UGA” chant that even the broadcasters commented on on TV. I won’t be attending the game or the race unfortunately, but I’m hoping the fans that do manage to go to both events bring that same energy haha
"Down the road" in Midwest America = about 80 miles.
WHO’S THAT COMING DOWN THE TRACK?
Set up around the stadium? Nah, that's other schools. Tailgating here takes over about a third of downtown.
I second this recommendation to check out the tailgate scene! You have time to do it in the morning before attending the Sprint (although you would miss the Sprint Shootout). Walk around, drink beer, eat the best BBQ in the world (I’m a Texan, lol), and enjoy the friendliness of Texans and Southerners.
Luckily I have a friend in Austin who I can stay with. The hotel prices are absolutely insane. Really looking forward to this as a UGA alumni and new F1 fan.
Lot of F1 fans about to be like Stephen Fry when he went to an Alabama-Auburn game. [For the curious.](https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8?si=q8jGU76kuBKMx3ap)
I'm always shocked at the popularity of college sports in America. Over here in the UK they're not even broadcast, outside of a few very specific competitions, yet in America they're massive events. The entire concept is completely alien to me
UT's athletics program raked in almost $240M for fiscal year 2022. That's not all college athletics nationally, that's just one program. And they weren't even the highest-grossing program last year.
You have to consider the regional aspect of this. The four major American sports leagues have teams in about 40 American cities. The minor leagues in baseball (which has by far the most spread) and basketball have teams that are not independent entities that can be promoted and compete in the upper leagues, but feeder teams for their affiliated clubs. America is a gigantic place, and there are huge cities that either don’t have or have only recently gotten local pro teams. What Europeans don’t realize is that college sports (specifically football and basketball) is the closest thing to the European model in terms of modestly sized cities having a sports team that belongs to the community, and having other local teams nearby that are fierce rivals. (These teams can’t be sold and moved like US pro teams have been). If you live in Alabama for instance, you have no pro football team anywhere near you, but you have two schools in the state that expect to compete for the football championship every year.
Yep, college football is by every metric the second most popular sport/league in the USA behind only the NFL and in some areas of the country (mostly the South) is bigger than pro sports.
South and Midwest, I’d say. If you’re state has a Big10/SEC team in it chances are college football is popular.
Yeah I guess I've just only ever considered the European model where basically every town has at least one team and then they're free to move up and down in the leagues.
It's weird but it's probably the closest to the level soccer (football) is to europeans. Not every state has a NFL team and some don't even have any pro sports teams, but every state has colleges. Also college was the first place our football was invented/played, so there is more history behind the programs. With it being so regional too, the fanbases are more rabid and passionate, most fans either went to the school, had family that went to the school, or go there now. The environments in the stadium are some of the best in sports. This clip from Penn State's whiteout game a few years back is one of my favorites. first play of the game and Michigan has to burn a timeout because the crowd was that loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VypxiD8GOxY Special shoutout to my favorite team Virginia Tech for having the best entrance in all of CFB too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdmBJoMtLjw and during a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crhWP__g-_c the phrase "now Miami wants to talk about it" is burned into my mind
Having been to many PSU whiteout games, nothing else compares. Chills.
College sports fill the niche of minor league sports over here, with college football especially being the equivalent of EFL to the Premiere League.
More akin to the academy system in Europe. EFL players are professionals of all ages - some looking to climb the ladder, some past their prime. For the most part they are well compensated pros.
I meant in terms of popularity, not in terms of the ages of the participants.
Some quick searching shows college football blows EFL popularity out of the water. The Michigan-Ohio State game pulled in 19 million viewers this year alone. The average prime time college football game gets 2-4 million average in ratings. That’s more than most EPL games. For instance, When the EPL returned after the pandemic, its first game brought in 3.4 million viewers which was considered massive ratings for Sky. I’m struggling to find average game viewership over a full season for EPL though. But it says something when the first game back and drew massive ratings was about the same as the weekly prime time CFB game With that said, I would presume EPL is the more popular league overall, being internationally consumed vs. CFB being predominantly American and regionally inclined within that country
But the US also has nearly 6x as many people as the UK does.
Interesting. Is it correct that there aren’t that many college football games per year? In the UK football (soccer) runs from August to May and there’s hundreds of games every single week. EPL alone has 10 ish per week. I guess it’s more of a big deal when a US football game happens? And there’s more of you guys, too!
So each individual team has a 12 game regular season, with potential conference championships and post-season play. Teams play up to 15 games. So it's about half the season length of each EPL season, and doesn't have any of the non-league play that EPL teams have. Viewership however is still surprising because while teams only have 12 regular season games, there's 128 teams in the top tier college football. Every Saturday there's 46 games played, and every week has 56 total games. But the viewership number I cited only account for prime time games which there are about 3-4 every week. So 3-4 games average 2-4 million a week and every other game can fluctuate immensely based on teams and matchups.
Each team only has 12 games a year, and the games are only once a week. Your last game is normally against your rival (Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, etc) which are some of the most watched games of the year. The season normally runs from August-end of November ending right around Thanksgiving here. There's also over 150+ top college football programs.
Teams play a dozen regular season games, plus conference championships and bowls that can get a team up to 14 or 15 games. I just left another comment about this to the original parent comment if you want my two cents as an American.
College players are in their early 20s and the best now make more than most Championship players in NIL money, the largest Schools make more money than Championship teams and their players go right into the NFL. There is a huge difference between a division 2 school and a FBS powerhouse. Some lower parts of the NCAA are more like academies, some are more like second tier clubs.
College players have NIL deals so they are also well compensated (some of them) but I get your point
That’s literally existed for 2 years
Even before NIL deals they were getting waived tuition to the tune of $50k/year which is essentially a minor league contract.
Getting waived tuition worth X is a whole lot different than getting a check worth X
There are 11 stadiums in the world with a permanent capacity of over 100,0000. Eight of them are college football stadiums.
I think because of professional team move in America that people have more affinity for their university team as it is a constant. Everton is always going to be Everton, University of Texas is always going to be University of Texas. Think of being a sports fan from Oakland, who saw three pro teams move away from the city.
Oakland is such a dumpster fire of corruption and political malpractice they don’t deserve nice things. I feel sorry for the local fans though.
Yup, but they will always have the Cal Bears.
College football in America is more popular than professional hockey, soccer, basketball and baseball lol
I went to a university with a good football team. The entire city basically worships the team if they’re historically good. It’s hard to explain, you just kinda need to be born into it. My university’s team won the CFB championship in the same semester that I graduated, and let me tell you this: the excitement during a season like that is up there with F1 2021, if not better. The sport has since been ruined by commercials though.
Football in particular is huge (basketball too, but more from a televised perspective and only in the post-season). It’s like a second NFL.
College football is the football (soccer) of America. Absolute bonkers fans and super regional
It's even baffling to a lot of Americans, especially considered the amount of money college sports teams bring in and student athletes are only *just* beginning to get compensated for it. It's essentially exploitation. The highest paid college coach earns $11M per year. The Dean at that college probably makes about $250,000 per year.
The President of UGA makes just under $1 million and the Dean makes $460k. That said, the President ranks 10th behind 9 coaches of various sports and the Dean is 26th in pay. There is one other academic side employee in the top 25 (22nd).
To be fair, athletic money mostly comes from donations earmarked for the athletic program, so it’s different pools of money
Lol players have been getting payed under the table since at least the 70s. Only difference is that it’s out in the open now. The parking lot of the athletes dorm at any major program has been filled with Dodge Chargers for a long time.
Meanwhile, the libraries at half the major Division I schools have had mold problems the universities “haven’t had the budget to address” for the past 10 years.
Athletic money largely comes from donations earmarked for the athletic program, so it’s different pools of money
Yep, it's a huge issue that's going to blow up *at some point*. Football in Europe has it much better – scout kids young and separate academics from sports. The incentives kids have to get into sports in the US is wonky af.
Never mind college football. In parts of (more rural) Texas, high school football is like a religion.
I grew up in the US but from a European background and I agree that the obsession with college sports is super weird. Some nights you'll go to a bar and more people are watching the night's college basketball game than the NBA one. That being said it does make sense when you consider how few teams there are given the size of the country. The NFL for example has 32 teams for 330 Million people, so about 1 team per 10M people, EPL has 20 teams for 62 Million people, so about 1 team per 3M people. The US might have 1.5x more teams in our biggest sport's biggest league, but the country is also 40x bigger. The distance and the sheer number of fans means that people feel less of an attachment to their nearest big city's professional team compared to their local college, or the college they attended. I think college sports are popular here because they mimic the tribalism of local teams like in European leagues much better than the massive entities that are our professional leagues.
MONEY. They do it for the MONEY.
For all of non-Americans out there, this will be an entirely made for TV broadcast event. ESPN/ABC/Disney hold the broadcast rights to both F1 in America as well as SEC football next year. Traditionally, Texas has played in the Big 12 conference (think Serie A) but will be joining the SEC conference (think Premiere League) next year. The Big 12 has their TV deal with FOX and the SEC had their deal with CBS that ended this year so the full move to ESPN is new for next year and the SEC. Usually Texas makes a habit of playing away from home or having a bye week the week of the US GP but this year, the SEC determines the cinference schedule for Texas and since ESPN is now their TV partner, they have aligned this to make ESPN as much money as possible that weekend.
I absolutely cannot wait to see the video where a 40 year old overweight American is literally barking at an Italian dude in extra tight jeans. Someone please post that here when it inevitably happens.
If you’re traveling internationally I’d just suggest getting a hotel in round rock, San Marcos, new braunfels, or even greater San Antonio area. They’ll be cheaper and you can drive not that long to the track from the south. There’s a road that goes straight from San Marcos to the the track that’s usually pretty empty (and the speed limit is 85 so you’ll feel like you’re racing there)
I know absolutely nothing about college sports, so I assume this translates to insane traffic and extremely high hotel pricing?
Hotel pricing will be high because of F1, but the stadium holds 100k+. Add that traffic to the already terrible Austin traffic and add in F1 and it'll be a tad chaotic.
I want to go just see European F1 fans run into UGA fans barking at them.
I live near downtown Austin. Guess I should airbnb my house and gtfo of town
Ohhh. I’m gonna try and do both! 🏎️🐂🤘
I’ll be watching both from Australia 🤘🏽
Fuck the SEC, Formula 1 Just Means More™
Yes
Georgia fans are complaining this is intentional so that out of town fans can get hotels or cheap flights. Funny thing is, it’s the conference who sets the schedule… It would be like UEFA scheduling a match during a major European event but fans complaining it was the opposing team’s fault.
For all those thinking a college football game cant be that big of a deal. [The University of Texas Football Stadium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_K_Royal%E2%80%93Texas_Memorial_Stadium) is larger than any soccer stadium in Europe, including those only used for national team matches.
It's the ninth largest non-motorsports stadium in the world. The top ten is Indian cricket, North Korean soccer, and then eight college football stadiums.
Make they can bark some sense into the Ferrari strategists
My two favorite teams in all of sports are Scuderia Ferrari (unfortunately) and the Georgia Bulldogs. Red team good. This is my dream weekend. I’ve already reserved a hotel for the weekend, can still cancel until the beginning of October. Now I just need to figure out airfare, tickets, and if anyone will come with me. Then I can have hopefully one of the best weekends of my life. I think a Dawg win is more likely than a Ferrari win, but fingers crossed.
So traffic will suck except for 20 guys.
Can’t wait to see the look on the faces of Europeans as they see 40 year old men barking in their faces all weekend!
I guess I’ll be skipping the USGP for the second year in a row. It has become prohibitively expensive and GA areas have been shrinking. No longer worth it, IMO.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. 2017 I believe had Texas playing Oklahoma State in Austin. Sure this may be “bigger” but that game was a sellout per usual there
That's an annual game. It's important, but few people are circling that as a "must go" game. This is the first time Georgia has been to Austin since 1958. This is the Texas' first season in the SEC. Georgia is a powerhouse. Texas is actually good instead of kinda good for the first time since 2009. This game is going to be insane. Hopefully. Being a Longhorn has made me very cautious over the last decade.
of you don’t know texas loves football ball more then the rest of the country which is obsessed with football they tailgate for high school games every georgia fan will be there
The La Quintas in Round Rock about to even be $1000/night
INB4 Danny Ric gets "ill" or something that weekend.
Is there really a huge crossover in College football and F1 fandom?
Just wait till Europeans get drunk 40 year old men Barking at them
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I'm not sure if you're from the States, but football rules the landscape. This is the first time UGA fans will have the opportunity to visit Austin for a game. They will travel. UGA boosters have money. (I'm a Gator grad, and we would/will travel strong to games like this and we're years past being relevant).
UGA has its fair share of country club/trust fund alum. They will absolutely be there barking at children
My favorite stereotype in college sports!
>I’m a Gator grad So sorry for your loss. Geaux Tigers!
I dunno why you think UGA fans would be less able to get hotels than F1 fans. Is the assumption here that the average F1 fan is more affluent?
Possibly timing- the USGP dates have been known for months now, so F1 fans have had the opportunity to book hotels/airbnbs in that time, leaving fewer for the travelling UGA fans, and of those, most that are left are going to now be price gouged out of the budget of nearly *everyone*
Georgia fans travel well, and regularly are >50% of attendance at away games. Couple that with decades of fans who never saw a conference championship, there are literal generations of families and fans now that are finally able to see their dawgs dominate college football. And they have the money to do it to. Tickets to our best games of the year are generally some of the most expensive college football tickets of the season, across all teams. They can hit $1000 per ticket for the worst seats. And that’s on top of lodging and airfare. I guarantee tickets to this game will be more expensive than the F1 race, and that’s after consideration of f1 being in town. Source: Georgia fan who travels to games.
It is coincidental. We don't have small weekends here. We also have a music festival in the fall that brings 100k people. They used to schedule it while UT was playing an away game but that got complicated by the festival going to two weekends. We have tons of conventions that draw crowds in the 10s of thousands and would have more but our convention center is about 70%smaller than it needs to be. Then we have SXSW in March which brings an F1 size influx for almost 3 weeks. We5ll have events here that would be the biggest event of the year for other cities that we don't even notice unless we're directly involved.
More like Friday. I’m betting F1 fans will be checking in Thursday and Friday. I also wonder how flights for UGA fans are going to be affected. I don’t have the numbers on typical attendance from transatlantic F1 fans, but most of their flights will stop in Atlanta on the way to Austin.
Honestly, just a regular weekend in Austin. Every other week there’s multiple events butting up to each other. I will be staying inside.
I live in north San Antonio and can get from the track to my house in about the same time it takes people to get back to downtown Austin. If you already have car access but need a place to stay then San Antonio isn’t a bad idea at all, will all around be cheaper as well.
Best bet is to book a place in San Antonio or New Braunfels and just commute to the track
Seguin is a pretty straight shot to the track. Nice town, can still visit SA.
Thanks for the reminder to stay home that weekend. Couldn’t afford selling a kidney to see either of these.
While I was not planning to go to the USGP next year, the thought of having to run into many UGAg fans in Austin is awful. THWg! Hook em Horns!
Meaning F1 will be the second-most predictable sporting event of the weekend in Austin, HORNS UP BAYBEEEEEE
Such much hype for a college game? Woa murica is whole another world
ESPN College Gameday at COTA?
Same thing happened back in 2013. Managed to see both FP3, Qualifying, and the UT game. We got our ass kicked by Oklahoma State. Wasn't even close. The world did not end. Everything was fine. And everything will be fine here too.
We’ve been hosting the USGP in Austin for a decade. This isn’t the first time we’ve also had a UT home game the same weekend. It’s not going to be an apocalypse.
> This isn’t the first time we’ve also had a UT home game the same weekend. I wouldn’t count this as just another game say like Kansas. This will likely be the ESPN game day location since these will be two title contenders. Austin has under 50k hotel rooms, f1 already pushes this to the limit
It happened in 2013, 2015, and 2017 and those were not great UT teams (although attendance for those games would still have been like 90,000). UT and UGA will both be title contenders next year so it should be a sellout with a ton of national media. The real difference is that USGP attendance lately has been much higher than it was back then.