Why are Clemson and Georgia playing so early? Organizer explains noon kickoff

Clemson and Georgia are playing one of the biggest college football games of the year later this month. But they’re doing it much earlier than most anticipated.

One of the primary reasons the No. 1 Bulldogs and No. 14 Tigers are kicking off at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium at noon instead of later on Aug. 31?

Air conditioning.

Back in May, Clemson and UGA supporters alike were surprised to see that ESPN had designated their teams’ Aflac Kickoff Game for a noon kickoff on ABC, as opposed to the afternoon or night game time slots the network also held for that Saturday.

As part of its Week 1 coverage, ESPN instead designated the Miami at Florida game for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff and the Notre Dame at Texas A&M game for 7 p.m. kickoff.

Both those games are also on ABC.

Peach Bowl CEO and president Gary Stokan , whose organization runs the game, said the feedback he got from ESPN executives was that heat played a big factor.

“With the Texas A&M and Notre Dame game, because Notre Dame is with NBC in their contract , ESPN doesn’t get them much on TV,” Stokan told The State last week. “So to have them, obviously they’re a huge draw. They (ESPN) put them on at night because both teams are going to be ranked.”

Notre Dame is ranked No. 7 and A&M No. 20 in the preseason AP Top 25 .

That eliminated Clemson-Georgia from the 7 p.m. time slot. As for 3:30 p.m.?

“They felt like Miami and Florida was going to be cooler, for lack of a better term,” Stokan said.

While Clemson and Georgia will be playing in a dome usually inhabited by the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons , Miami and Florida won’t have the luxury of climate control. The No. 19 Hurricanes will be playing the Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville.

“I don’t know how cool it’s going to be in The Swamp ,” Stokan said with a laugh. “But it might be cooler then than at noon for those guys to play. More than anything, because we’re in an air-conditioned atmosphere, they could put us on at any time.”

Game organizers, he added, are planning to set the temperature at a cozy 70 to 72 degrees for the Aflac Kickoff Game, which has been played in Atlanta since 2008 and was known as the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game until a sponsor change last summer.

Neither Clemson nor Georgia nor game organizers had any control over the kickoff time. That’s something television partners — in this case, ESPN, which has TV deals with the ACC and the SEC — pay millions of dollars annually for the right to decide.

But Stokan emphasized he and his team would’ve been happy with any time slot. ESPN, he said, also communicated to him that part of the thinking behind a noon kickoff was Clemson-Georgia would attract a large audience, then serve as a “great lead-in” for the Miami-Florida and Notre Dame-Texas A&M games following it.

“They want us to bat lead-off, get a double or a triple and then fortify that with the other games,” Stokan said.

A ‘unique’ atmosphere

An early kickoff time hasn’t hurt any attendance plans so far.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium usually seats 71,000 and can expand to 75,000 seats for special events. The stadium will be using the 75,000-seat set-up for Clemson-Georgia, Stokan confirmed, adding that both schools have already sold out the 25,000 tickets they were each allotted for the contest.

On top of that, organizers recently added another 2,800 standing room-only tickets — which positions Clemson-Georgia to potentially set a new stadium attendance record. The current record for Mercedes-Benz Stadium is 79,330 for the 2023 Peach Bowl and College Football Playoff semifinal game between Ohio State and Georgia.

“We’re going to be close to that,” Stokan said, adding that he’s anticipating a roughly 50-50 split between Clemson and Georgia fans for the game given the ticket allotments (although fans in suites could swing it 55-45 or so in favor of UGA).

All in all, Atlanta’s positioned for quite the matchup between Clemson and Georgia, regional rivals who’ve combined to win four of the last eight college football national championships.

In their 66th all-time meeting and first since 2021, coach Dabo Swinney’s Tigers are a 13.5-point betting underdog to coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs.

The game also represents the first of five scheduled meetings between the ACC and SEC rivals over the next 10 years (2029 and 2033 in Clemson, 2030 and 2032 in Athens). The schools are only 75 miles apart from each other and have played 65 times since 1897, but only 17 times since 1980 (44 seasons).

Said Stokan: “When you put two major schools like this with the rivalry that exists, I mean, it’s going to be one of the most unique, electric atmospheres that you’ll find in college football this year — and maybe that we’ve ever had at our kickoff game.”