(04-06-2013 10:45 PM)ChrisLords Wrote: (04-06-2013 09:54 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: True. I realize ASU loses their home game, but since they won't play in South Bend either, it becomes a 1-and-done neutral site game. No harm, no foul.
Quite frankly, I was surprised to see ND sign a neutral site/away deal to begin with. Especially with a non-power like ASU. ND usually goes for the Home/Neutral.
It is a 2-1 deal in favor of ND. Two home games for ND and a game in Arizona.
The 2013 game in Dallas is not a "neutral site" game.
It is an ND home game. ND has been playing the "Shamrock Series" for quite a few years now.
They move home games to big venue neutral sites all over the country.
They only play six games in South Bend and move the seventh home game all around the country.
They played "home games" in the Alamo Dome in San Antonio in 2009, Yankee Stadium in New York in 2010, at Fed Ex Field in Washington, D.C. in 2011, Soldier Field in Chicago last season and in Dallas next year.
ND controls the ticket sales and the games are televised on NBC. ND brings just about the entire university, the entire marching band and tens of thousands of fans to these games. They make the field look like ND Stadium with the diagonal striped endzones, wear home uniforms and transform the place as much as possible to a home game atmosphere/experience.
It is part of returning to ND's "barnstorming" days of Knute Rockne and the 1920's, when ND had to travel by train all over the country to play because Michigan and the Big Ten rejected ND's conference application and organized a boycott against ND.
ND likes to travel all over for exposure and to bring the game to fans, alumni and prospective students as many places as possible in road games and in that "neutral site, home game".
Last year, they played in Dublin, Ireland, Norman, Oklahoma, Los Angeles and in Miami for the title game.
The Dublin game was technically a Navy home game, but ND's pep rally the night before the game had 10,000 fans there to hear the Irish Prime Minister speak, listen to famous Irish actors/musicians perform and had its pep rally televised nationally across Ireland via RTE' (Ireland's national TV/radio network).
(ND also brought 35,000 fans across the Atlantic for that game last year).
ND doesn't worry about travel costs, it is part of the mission.
ND uses its football team as an advertising and recruiting arm of the university itself, it markets itself as the national Catholic university.
