Ole Miss Athletics
By Chris Marler
$74 million.
Think about what that could buy for Christmas in the college football world.
If you’re a sicko like me, your first thought is probably buyout money or a transfer portal spending spree. But you know what else it could fund? Logic and reason.
On Saturday, the biggest game in the history of the state of Mississippi will be played at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Ole Miss will host Tulane in the first round of the college football playoff. According to a statement from Oxford mayor Robyn Tannehill, the projected economic impact of this weekend will be about $74 million.
“For Tulane, we played them in mid-September, and there were about 250,000 people in town for that game. The economic impact was $64 million,” said Tannehill. “Our largest economic impact this season was the LSU game at the end of September. We had about 340,000 people in town and an economic impact of $74 million. That’s the impact that [a College Football Playoff game] will have on our community — in a month that’s never seen a football game in Oxford.”
This weekend’s College Football Playoff game at Ole Miss is projected to generate at least $74 million in economic impact for the city of Oxford. pic.twitter.com/XN7KYmvd4h
— SuperTalk News (@SuperTalkNews) December 17, 2025
What a win for Ole Miss. And, every other school that’s getting to host a first round game, for that matter.
What a loss for the other teams. The four teams who earned a bye for the first round of this year’s CFP got an extra week of rest. They also got a “skip-the-line turbo pass” to a corporate quarterfinal that forces fans to travel thousands of miles for tickets going for $50 or less on the secondary market, just to watch their team in the final eight.
That sucks.
Tickets for the Peach Bowl between Texas and ASU are as low as $29.
New users can take $10 off by creating an account through link in bio pic.twitter.com/9A7Ck7Za6w
— TickPick (@TickPick) December 31, 2024
College Football has missed the boat on so many things when it comes to appealing to the fans that have consumed it for 156 years. Most of it is super simple and not a big ask, either.
One, stop giving us a two-minute warning just so you can show more commercials. Trust me, we haven’t been feeling the cheesiest in years, Cheez-It.
Two, stop ruining bowl season with the endless corporate sponsors, the ever-expanding list of games, the 5–7 teams sneaking in and the annual flood of opt-outs. Just give us back the Outback Bowl and give us more Pop-Tart Bowl energy, please.
Three, do – and I say this as calmly as possible – literally anything for the actual fans.
And I’ve come up with an incredible idea. Don’t worry, it won’t cost anyone a single TV dollar, since that seems to be the only guiding light in this sport anymore. But maybe start by playing college football, wait for it, on college campuses. What a novel concept.
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