How Alabama is screwing its season ticket holders

Alabama is screwing its season ticket holders.

The university isn’t screwing them out of victories – they have plenty. It isn’t screwing them out of SEC Championships – they have plenty. It isn’t screwing them out of great recruits – they have plenty. It isn’t screwing them out of National Championships – they have a plenty (400 at the last count).

The University of Alabama is screwing its season ticket holders out of good games.

Every year since 2012, Alabama has played the opening game of the season at neutral site venue. In 2012, it was at the spaceship called JerryWorld, in the middle of a massive parking lot in Arlington, Texas. In 2013 and 2014, they ‘kindly’ moved to kick off the season at the Home Depot Dome in Atlanta, GA. Then, induced by Jerry Jones’ money, they came back there to play Wisconsin in the spaceship in 2015. Alabama will play USC in 2016, Florida State in 2017, and Louisville in 2018. And you can’t just have an Alabama season ticket, either. You have to have a certain amount of points to guarantee a spot.

Arlington is a near-nine hour drive from Tuscaloosa. It’s a 9-1/2 hour drive from Birmingham, AL (Alabama’s biggest city). Atlanta’s a generous 3 hour drive. That’s still a pain-in-the-ass.

Does all this mean Alabama has reduced its season ticket prices in the view of the crappiness of the out-of-conference teams who come to Tuscaloosa for the slaughter? Nope.

If you’re an Alabama fan who actually lives in Alabama, you’d probably be killing to see a good team play under the lights of a rocking Bryant-Denny Stadium. And you KNOW that season tickets of USC, Florida State and Louisville would have loved a home-and-home, too.

But thanks to AD Bill Battle, Jerry Jones, ESPN and the other schedule setters, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.