My old boss over at Warchant wrote a really interesting story about the 2017 kickoff game in Atlanta between FSU and Alabama and how it went down. Here's a link.
The short version: The Chick-Fil-A kickoff people had wanted to get Alabama in the game, and had wanted to get FSU in the game for a long time. Getting both in the same year was a pipe dream for them, especially with the connections between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher.
So they first reached out about it in 2010 and FSU expressed some interest, but didn't think it was ready to take on any marquee nonconference opponents beyond what they already had. This was as FSU was still rebuilding. The people in Atlanta kept at it, and there was still interest from both sides. Eventually, things fell into place for 2017.
Also worth noting that the payout for this game is massive: $5 million. I truly think that might be the biggest payout ever for a nonconference regular season game, but I'm not sure what some of the other ones out there are. $2 or $3 million isn't out of the box for a big game, but $5 million is massive.
The short version: The Chick-Fil-A kickoff people had wanted to get Alabama in the game, and had wanted to get FSU in the game for a long time. Getting both in the same year was a pipe dream for them, especially with the connections between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher.
So they first reached out about it in 2010 and FSU expressed some interest, but didn't think it was ready to take on any marquee nonconference opponents beyond what they already had. This was as FSU was still rebuilding. The people in Atlanta kept at it, and there was still interest from both sides. Eventually, things fell into place for 2017.
Also worth noting that the payout for this game is massive: $5 million. I truly think that might be the biggest payout ever for a nonconference regular season game, but I'm not sure what some of the other ones out there are. $2 or $3 million isn't out of the box for a big game, but $5 million is massive.
