What does it take to host College GameDay?

Howdy, welcome to your Thursday FOIAball. Shall we? 

Only a few people here know this, but the upcoming season is the 20th anniversary of the very first time I covered college football. 

In fall 2006, when “Promiscuous” was topping the charts, I started a weekly Top 25 picks column for my college newspaper.

I was a big Norman Chad fan at the time, and I shamelessly cribbed the format from him. The jokes… well, I was 22. They were awful. Just look at the headshot of this smug little prick.

My column from Week Two is, unfortunately, lost to the online ether. But I remember it well. It opened with a screed about how much I hated the new College GameDay anthem, which debuted the season before.

I took particular issue with its “zing zangs” and “ying yangs” and “tings tangs,” concluding that, if Big & Rich were coming to my city, I wanted to be out of town. 

Our website had comments at the time, but no one used them. So I was surprised when that story got one. It tore into me, fuming about how I was making a mockery of everything Big & Rich stood for, how I knew nothing about all the charity work the band did, calling me a smug journalist who hated fun. 

The username was “iamjohnrich.”

Maybe it was a troll, or a bit. But I don’t think so. I’m certain it was the lead singer himself. It was the first time I realized how fun, irreverent media can get under people’s skin. 

That said, I grew to love the song. When it was officially retired in 2023, I genuinely felt a pang of sadness. Watching GameDay throughout college and my early 20s was such a formative experience. It was sharp, intelligent, exuberant. It is, I think, almost singularly responsible for turning college football into the massive, discourse-eating behemoth it is today. And I mean that as the nicest of compliments. 

So in honor of my two decades as a college football reporter (not counting the 18-year gap), and with formal apologies finally to John Rich, here’s what it’s like when College GameDay comes to your city.

Most sports shows are entirely studio-based; College GameDay’s rolling production is what helped make it so unique. And putting on a three-hour variety show every single week involves a lot of moving parts. 

To see exactly what that entails, FOIAball requested contracts, agreements, and spec sheets from schools that have hosted the show. This story comes from GameDay’s appearances at LSU, Cal, Oklahoma, and Oregon in the 2024 season. 

ESPN’s production crew travels in an absolute unit of a convoy, requiring space on campus for four staging semis, two production trucks, a generator truck, the official GameDay bus (which serves as a green room for talent), Pat McAfee’s Prevost motor coach, a second backup generator, and a satellite truck.

GameDay does not formally demand campuses host McAfee’s mobile home, though, noting it is “NOT required to be onsite but helpful if we have space.”

I like that even ESPN is like, you don’t have to deal with this dude if you don’t want. 

For the actual set, GameDay puts up its iconic main stage, plus its fake football field. There’s a second, smaller stage, bleachers for 50 people, three massive video screens, an entire aerial camera system, and 10 pop-up tents for crew. 

It shares sketches in advance of how the setup will likely look on campus.

The production team also provides pictures of previous shows to give an idea of what to expect. Pictures that the state of Oklahoma does not want you to see. In its response to me, images from other schools were completely redacted. 

To keep every part of its traveling circus in place, GameDay requires a ChatGPT-esque amount of water, 3,660 gallons, to be precise, filling up cubes and drums to serve as ballast.

For the Saturday show, crewmembers start arriving on campus at noon on Wednesday. Over the next few days, that group swells. ESPN requests around 30 parking spaces the first day and up to 110 on Saturday. 

But it's not just outdoor space they need. Host schools have to set up two separate indoor spaces for the crew to use as conference rooms: one for 35 people, another for 15. They’d like those to have fridges, too, if possible.

The team needs dining space for 65. For two of the meals, Friday night and Saturday morning, GameDay tries to source directly from campus catering. Universities must also find a home to record Nick Saban’s film room segment.

The schedule is essentially the same each week, with schools given a down-to-the-minute rundown for all four days. 

On Saturdays, the call time for the GameDay crew is four hours before the show begins. When they’re on the East Coast, that’s 5:15 a.m.

But when GameDay went to Oregon in October 2024—and at other West Coast stops—call time is 2:15 a.m. Good Lord. 

After the show is done, the production team is off campus just seven hours later. ESPN provides bins for everyone’s signs, but schools are expected to dispose of them. 

As a preeminent American media property, the College GameDay experience comes with everyone’s favorite marketing tool: brand activations. 

A separate “Onsite Activation Overview” details all the various advertising set-ups.

For those who can’t source poster board, there’s the Home Depot sign-making tent, stocked with Sharpies and branded placards. The hardware giant also hands out 500 branded hard hats and 800 pairs of branded football gloves each week. 

Then there’s an entire VIP section I never knew about, where Home Depot hosts up to 30 luminaries each week. They get a separate tent with catering from a local chef and swag bags.

There’s also stuff from DoorDash, GEICO, and Old Dominion Freight that I don’t care about. I care about the DJ who throws out plushy Aflac ducks. I want one of those.

You want to know how much this costs. Typically nothing. It seems most universities let ESPN do it for free. The three hours of programming amount to one massive ad for the school. 

GameDay’s contract with Oregon states that the university has “waived its fees for the use of its property and facilities in exchange for the publicity, exposure, and outreach resulting from the live television broadcast of this event.” 

But. That’s not always the case. In Cal’s contract, the Golden Bears did not let Rece Davis and Co. do the show for free. For some reason, the school charged ESPN $4,500. 

Seems petty. I love it. Then again, Cal lost to Miami that night. I have to assume that is the reason why.

College GameDay via ESPN/YouTube