Back in the summer of 2007, then-Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White announced that he had scheduled the Irish to play in a series of "home games" at neutral sites.
Tonight was the first one of those, a "battle" against hapless Washington State in San Antonio''s Alamodome. The move was done, no doubt, to expose potential recruits in Texas to the ND football experience. Like the Cowboys, Lakers, Cubs and Yankees, Notre Dame is a national brand with fans and alumni in all corners of the country.
My good friend David Robb covered it for the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana, and reports that although the game billed as "The San Antonio Showdown" drew a crowd of 53,407, the majority of fans were Irish supporters. Not quite a sellout of a stadium that seats 65,000, but not bad given that each school is located at least 1,300 miles from the River City.
In addition, the Irish will play "home games" in Orlando in 2011 and 2014, the first college football game in the new Yankee Stadium, against Army in 2010 - heck, even a game in Dublin against Navy in 2012.
It's a pretty genius move in that it accomplishes two things: 1) It gives ND's far-flung alumni base an opportunity to see their favorite team without having to pay a fortune to come to South Bend, and 2) It allows the Irish to make important in-roads in the talent-rich football states of Texas and Florida.
Of course, all of this will help line Notre Dame's coffers, and it would be infinitely more difficult to pull off these grandiose ventures if they were part of a major conference.
As it stands now, however, their status as an independent allows them to schedule games against practically anyone, anywhere, any time. They get the lion's share of the exposure and revenue from these games, and the only authority they must answer to is the NCAA.
In a word: Brilliant.
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