For college football fans, weekends always start with Big & Rich.
Sitting at home or at a tailgate, fans watch as the country music duo’s song “Comin’ to Your City” plays every Saturday morning to start ESPN’s show “College GameDay.” The song serves as the start of each fan’s favorite day of the week.
Like the title of the song, fans wait patiently each week, watching the show visit different college campuses and hoping one day the show will come to their city.
Baton Rouge gets its moment this Saturday.
“College GameDay” announced earlier this week it would be headed to LSU this Saturday in anticipation for the Tigers’ game against No. 3 Ole Miss. The week has been filled with debate on who the celebrity guest picker may be and what signs fans may make for the show.
The problem for some is the show’s early morning start time, dissuading students from waking up early and preventing them from going out the night before. This notion is too simple-minded and fails to reflect how significant GameDay has become to college football.
ESPN began running “College GameDay” in 1987, but the show really gained steam in 1993, when it started airing live on location for one of the big games every week. The live broadcast brought fans to the show, and suddenly ESPN had a connection with its fans unlike any other television network.
For the first time, fans could be seen somewhere other than the stadium, and the world of tailgating and socializing before the game could be broadcast to the country. You could see another fan base’s traditions without visiting the university, and that made for great television.
The show is almost like National Geographic and Planet Earth for sports fans. Every week GameDay goes to a college viewers had only heard of, and they see a different culture with the same love for college football.
As the years passed, the Internet made fan accessibility easier, but so did the idea of on-location pregame shows. Now, almost any big sporting event features a studio on the scene with screaming fans enthusiastic to be on a show they watch religiously.
The show reached a new level of significance when analyst Lee Corso began bringing mascot headgear for his picks at the end of the show. It is a comical act, but fans adore it, and being able to see Corso live on set has become another appeal of going to the show.
More than anything, getting picked to be GameDay’s location is a sign of relevancy for fans. Getting picked is ESPN’s way of saying a team has made it, and the school has the opportunity to prove its worth with the country watching.
The episodes on Oct. 4 and Oct. 11 were the best proof of the show’s impact when the studio went to Oxford, Mississippi, and Starkville, Mississippi, for the first time. The state flooded the campuses both weeks, recognizing the chance they were given.
LSU has been blessed with multiple visits from the GameDay crew in the last decade, including one in 2012 for the Tigers’ game against Alabama. The way the SEC West is going, it wouldn’t be surprising if the show came back to campus in the next few years.
Fans cannot predict the future, however, and students need to see the opportunity they have on Saturday. This is the first time GameDay has come to campus while sophomores and freshmen have been here, and it also could be their last.
Wake up early and bring your energy to the Parade Ground on Saturday. “College GameDay” is coming to your city, and that is worth sacrificing one Friday night.
Tommy Romanach is a 22-year- old mass communication senior from Dallas, Texas. You can reach him on Twitter @troman_92.