Clay Travis, owner of Outkick the Coverage, released a book in 2007 called “Dixieland Delight: A Football Season on the road in the Southeastern Conference.”
When I was younger, I was in awe of stadiums, and basically any gameday atmosphere. I just wanted to be able to say that I had been to the stadium, regardless of the game. My dad would routinely take us by stadiums en route to vacations.
We had a two week vacation, when I was 13, to visit Washington DC, and we took almost an entire week to visit different football stadiums and civil war sites on the way. We visited Scott Stadium, the University of Virginia’s stadium, in Charlottesville, VA, Carter-Finley Stadium, on the campus of NC State in Raleigh, Kenan Memorial Stadium, North Carolina’s stadium, in Chapel Hill, NC, among many many others.
It was the most fun part of the trip for me.
For a lot of college kids that grew up as college football fans, Clay’s book was the dream. Clay went on a tour of the SEC, back before there were neutral site games, when there were 12 games in a season, and 12 teams in the conference. He went to the best games, paid his own way in, and it seemed pretty easy.
Things were a lot different back then.
Nowadays, big games will cost hundreds of dollars. Before the season even starts, as of right now, several big time SEC games are already getting crazy… just to get in the door. The cheapest ticket on SeatGeek for Alabama / Florida St in the new Mercedes Benz Stadium on Sept 2nd, as of the time of this posting, is $599. Georgia at Notre Dame is $661. A game like South Carolina at Georgia on Nov 4th is $79 for one ticket just to get in.
And only one of those is in a stadium that’s actually on an SEC campus.
So if you’ve got a goal of checking out every SEC Stadium in one season, how can you possibly do that if you don’t make great money?
That’s why I’m here.
I’ve put together a list of games for every weekend that are pretty cheap to get into, trying to take travel into consideration as much as possible.
Obviously, you’ll be going home for a week after the games, but if your only objective is to go to games, see the stadium and campus of every SEC team in one season, and pay as little as possible, this is the list for you.
I’m sure you’re already asking “But Gary… there are 14 teams in the conference and only 13 weeks in the season. How can you do that?”
All I can say is God Bless ESPN Scheduling. I was hoping for more Thursday night options, but the only option is on Thanksgiving night in Starkville, MS for the Egg Bowl, which works out because, if you’re looking for rivalry games that are high intensity, but don’t cost all that much… this year’s Mississippi St vs Ole Miss game is the one to point to.
So let’s jump to it. This is the 2017 Dixieland Delight Tour on a Budget.
Sat, Sept 2nd
Georgia Southern at Auburn (in Auburn, AL)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $18
Sat, Sept 9th
Northern Colorado at Florida (in Gainesville, FL)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $12
Sat, Sept 16th
Samford at Georgia (in Athens, GA)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $34
Sat, Sept 23rd
UMass at Tennessee (in Knoxville, TN)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $18
Sat, Sept 30th
New Mexico St at Arkansas (in Fayetteville, AR)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $8
Sat, Oct 7th
Game: Missouri at Kentucky (in Lexington, KY)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $40
Sat, Oct 14th
Vanderbilt at Ole Miss (in Oxford, MS)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $9
Sat, Oct 21st
Idaho at Missouri (in Columbia, MO)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $11
Sat, Oct 28th
Vanderbilt at South Carolina (in Columbia, SC)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $29
Sat, Nov 4th
Western Kentucky at Vanderbilt (in Nashville, TN)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $5
Sat, Nov 11th
New Mexico at Texas A&M (in College Station, TX)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $12
Sat, Nov 18th
Mercer at Alabama (in Tuscaloosa, AL)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $20
Thurs, Nov 23rd
Ole Miss at Mississippi St (in Starkville, MS)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $58
Sat, Nov 25th
Texas A&M at LSU (in Baton Rouge, LA)
Lowest price current ticket on SeatGeek: $82
If you were to purchase all of these tickets right this second, it would run you $356. Obviously that does not include travel, and if you wait long enough to order the tickets, you can actually get some of them much cheaper than this (like Ole Miss vs Miss St – once both teams start losing, that $58 will drop, as will LSU and Texas A&M, Kentucky and Missouri, etc).
You want to spend a year visiting every SEC team on a Gameday for the cheapest amount of money — this is how you do it in 2017.
