Q&A: Interim SWAC Commissioner Gantt Talks Future of Title Game, League, His Position


The Founder

The Founder

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https://www.thenewsstar.com/story/s...erim-swac-commissioner-edgar-gantt/789969002/

The deal at NRG Stadium was not beneficial for the league. Monetarily speaking, how advantageous was the move to Birmingham and Legion Field?

Gantt: The city of Birmingham is offering a good landing spot for us. Our financial structure was one that needed to be looked at and re-evaluated and that’s what this year is really going to offer. Our league administration is looking at the format, is it one they want to bring on campus, is it one they want to have at a neutral site? This year as we reassess where we are as a conference, the partnership with the city of Birmingham has been a really good one so far.

Texas Southern fans are 10 hours from Birmingham. How do you help drum up enough energy and enthusiasm to get those fans – if they win the SWAC, two weeks later they got to go Atlanta to support their team. That’s a lot of money.

Gantt: That’s correct. When you talk about the money and helping a team to travel, it’s really looking at flights. Any Texas schools would fly into Birmingham or Atlanta. Partnerships, those opportunities help offset all those costs. That’s the best way to describe that. There’s a lot of good opportunity for growth, that’s where we are.
 
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I bet you'll never see the SCG at the schools. Not enough time to make travel plans and would require black folks to try and compromise on too much.

Game will likely stay in Bham for the future
 
Dont worry about Texas Southern playing in the football championship. We can't get our fans to BBVA compass statium. Y'all go ahead and have your little champion game anywhere you want.
 
What Gantt won't say is that this deal is really the only deal that made sense fiscally. Hosting the championship game at the campus of the team with the best record requires some level of conference oversight. That could be a relational nightmare and difficult from a logistics perspective. He took the best deal available. New Orleans is a better locale and the SuperDome is a better venue, but again the numbers just don't justify inking the deal. I don't like the prospect of weather conditions impacting a championship game, but we need to operate within the conference's financial constraints and then make new considerations that include sponsorship and a dome.
 
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2kool said:
More proof that this is still a band/auxillary/entertainment conference and not a football conference...
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Then why does the SWAC continue to be the leading conference in football attendance in all of FCS?
Why you keep doing this to yourself is unbelievable and your theory continues to make no sense.
AAMU may not be a football school, but don't lump the rest of the SWAC with them.
 
2kool said:
I bet you'll never see the SCG at the schools. Not enough time to make travel plans and would require folks to try and compromise on too much.
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That was always my point. There would not be enough time for people to plan on getting to the game without knowing where it was in advance. You have to remember that our teams have already made their travel plans for the football season as far as where they will stay when they play on the road. How do you expect them to get those same places to stay if they don't know where they will stay. Most hotels will be booked up or can't handle them.

westcoastaggie said:
Can’t y’all just use the Superdome?
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Isn't the La State high school championships going on at that time there?
 



JayRob said:
Then why does the SWAC continue to be the leading conference in football attendance in all of FCS?
Why you keep doing this to yourself is unbelievable and your theory continues to make no sense.
AAMU may not be a football school, but don't lump the rest of the SWAC with them.
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Dude most of those attendance figures are from each schools homecoming and rivalry games. MCC and the BC alone carries this conferences attendance.

REAL FOOTBALL fans dont whine about weather. They enjoy the game. It aint like its subfreezing that time of year in Alabama no way
 
Fiyah said:
So other conferences schools don't have Homecomings & Rivalry games?
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Not like ours due to historic tradition. But if the bands dont show up and no after parties are scheduled, who's coming to the game??

Look at what SWAC people are complaining about with the SCG going back to Birmingham. "Its too cold! Birmingham is boring!"

So what??
 
westcoastaggie said:
What about Tulane's new stadium?

It just seems that New Orleans is the most central location for SWAC Championships.
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The risk of Tulane possibly hosting the C-USA championship.

The SCG is usually on the same day as the C-USA championship preceding it on the ESPN family of networks
 
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