College Football HQ

College football fans split on concept of fixed site for national championship

Monday's CFP title game in Miami leaves fans debating the wisdom of having a set title game site.
Joe Cox|
Pasadena's iconic Rose Bowl Stadium drew mention from several fans as a potential permanent title game site.
Pasadena's iconic Rose Bowl Stadium drew mention from several fans as a potential permanent title game site. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Miami (FL) HurricanesIndiana Hoosiers

Getting to the national championship is the focus of every college football team-- and of a good many fans. With tickets for this season's title game running around $4,000 at the lowest entry price and Miami enjoying a home field advantage, many fans are calling for a fixed site for the CFP title game. Of course, it's a college football argument, so there are many, many widely varied opinions.

While Miami certainly represents a weather improvement for much of the nation, Miami's home field advantage was a bit off-putting. That said, it probably wasn't as off-putting as the reported $4,000 minimum ticket price, which was doubtlessly aided by the relatively low capacity of Miami's Hard Rock Stadium.

The Rose Bowl as permanent title game home?

Fans offered a variety of possible fixes, including perhaps most notably, utilizing the Rose Bowl as the permanent title game home. The 104-year old venue currently holds about 90,000 fans, and has held crowds as high as 106,869 in the 1973 Rose Bowl. Adding (at least) 23,000 more seats would doubtlessly alleviate the ticket crush.

Of course, several fans voiced an appreciation for playing the championship game on January 1st, which seems about as likely as playing the game in an empty stadium. With the CFP likely slated to grow, the game might be pushing closer to February 1st than January 1st.

That said, the Rose Bowl doesn't thrill everybody. It's an aging stadium, creates some relatively insane traffic snarls, and feels like an odd region to play a game in that rarely ever involves a west coast team.

Big Easy for title games?

Among the other intriguing options-- playing the game in New Orleans, home of the Superdome and nearly as historic as the Rose Bowl area as a college football locale.

High seed home fields for the entire CFP?

Another option is just extending the first-round playoff situation of the higher seeded-team getting the home field advantage. Obviously, that's a tough situation for lower-seeded opponents, but would certainly present an impressive college football atmosphere. That said, a CFP title game in Bloomington, Indiana with a temperature in the mid-10s seems like an unlikely outcome.

Sport by sport championship homes?

Another interesting option was choosing a permanent home for all the major sports. Baseball's College World Series has certainly thrived in Omaha. A southern home for college football seems plausible, although the Big Ten certainly might have something to say on that front.

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Joe Cox
JOE COX

Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.

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