The College Football Playoff’s decision to make Santa Clara, Calif., the home of this year’s national championship game is symptomatic of the type of greedy, short-sighted decision-making college football is infamous for, says Tim Brando of Fox Sports.
It could come back to bite them during Monday's title game matchup between No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Clemson, with empty seats at Levi’s Stadium.
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“It’s lack of foresight and just grabbing the cash. It’s a money grab," Brando told Sporting News. "Some thought needs to be given to these locations, instead of just going with the highest bidder.”
Levi’s Stadium is a state-of-the-art facility that hosted Super Bowl 50 and serves as the home of the Pac-12 championship game and NFL's San Francisco 49ers. But Brando never noticed any real buzz around the three games he has called there. That includes the 2014 Pac-12 title game, where eventual Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota led No. 2, Playoff-bound Oregon to a 51-13 victory over No. 8 Arizona.
“I was pretty jacked up. But I got there and you barely knew there was a game taking place,” Brando said. “The Oregon fans showed up because they follow their team. But the building was basically half-full. … It’s a vacant building. There’s very little going on there. There’s just no college football buzz.”
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The Alabama and Clemson fans who make the expensive, 2,000-mile trek to the game will face other problems. Traffic in and around Levi’s Stadium is as bad as the notorious California traffic can get. There aren't many hotels nearby. Getting past the security perimeter around the stadium is as tough as any in the country.
Said Brando: “Those fans from Alabama and Clemson are in for quite a ride when they get there. They’ve never seen anything quite like what they’re going to see.”