Gary Stokan, CEO and president of the Peach Bowl, joined Cheddar News to discuss the New Year's Eve showdown between Ohio State and Georgia.

Breaking Down Ohio State vs Georgia at the Peach Bowl

all eyes are gonna be on Atlanta this New Year's eve when the chick fil a peach ball will host its third college football playoff semifinal set to be a massive game with number four seed Ohio State facing the defending national champion Georgia featuring two programs that have already one Cfe titles. Well, joining me now from the peach State is the Ceo and president of the Peach Bowl. Gary stoke in Gary is great to see you huge weekend on tap for you and Georgia back in the peach Bowl for a second time in a row. And this weekend playing against Ohio State, which has the biggest fan base we should say in all of college football. So what can fans expect at your stadium on saturday? Well, we're gonna have a lot of fireworks on uh december 31st in the Chick Fil a peach Bowl and in Mercedes Benz Stadium with the number two scoring offense in the country and the number two scoring defense in the country, they say styles make great fight. So this should be a great battle. Okay, so I'm assuming you might be a little bit biased here of course, is taking place in the peach state of Georgia. And Georgia is playing in this matchup Gary in terms of the fan base, any sort of pulse as to who's gonna be in the audience. Will it be favored more towards Georgia? Well, I'm, I'm neutral. Uh, so I'm hoping for four overtimes to get our viewership numbers up. But uh, you know, we sold out in july and then both teams get 13,000 tickets. Each Georgia sold their 13,000 out in one day. Ohio State solders out in two days. So the uh the interest in this game is at a hall all time level. And uh with all of ESPN game day sportscenter uh and their broadcast with an 8 10 kick in prime time, it's gonna be really exciting to see the amount of people, not only at the game but the amount of people viewing the game, I think it'll probably be a probably a 70 30 split with Georgia fans over Ohio State. But Ohio State fans travel very well. So we expect to see a lot of them here in Atlanta I would suspect. Yes, it will. As you mentioned, be quite a rowdy crowd sold out since this summer. And what I like about this is another match up here. Of course. We cover the chicken sandwich wars. A lot of my business show, closing bell of a chick fil a one of the top dogs in that race in that battle sponsoring this massive peach bowl. What is the fan experience gonna be like in that regard? And how important is that partnership for you? Well, I often tell people chick Fil a food and their service is fantastic. But their people are even better. We've been blessed to have the partnership with chick Fil a since 1997 there, the longest sponsor of college football bowl games in history. And we've grown with them. They started back in 97 primarily a Southeastern company from Virginia down to texas then mirrored our A. C. C. Versus C. C. Matchup. But now we are part of the CFB national championship with the semifinal have hosted national championship games in Atlanta and Chick Fil a as we all know now as a national brand. So it's been a great partnership and we've grown together. Yes. Yes. I would imagine some of that will be in the stands as well. Gary. One of the big changes that we see this year of course is N. I. L. Name image and likeness and a lot of these were really any college athlete now being able to benefit from their own name image and like the and likeness, any expectation as to how that will affect the athletes playing on saturday. What'll be interesting going forward is we move to a 12 team playoff in 2024 there will be a lot more money put into the system and then in 2026 it's uh it's perceived to possibly even grow more with uh duplicate of tv uh sponsors coming in. Um you know, ESPN does a great job but I think it's being contemplated to bring in some other tv partners which will add more money more money means more money in the system which will trickle down to the student athletes. So it remains to be seen where the N. I. L. Will go grow. I know that Congress is looking at potentially legislating something nationally to put some guardrails around N. I. L. But it's college football is at an all time high right now. It's second only to the NFL and fan avidity. And I think with this 12 team playoffs starting in 24 it will grow even bigger and become even bigger sport nationally. Okay. Have you talked to either of these teams before the big game on saturday? Any insight as to how they're preparing and at least whether or not Ohio State has arrived yet in the peach State. Yeah. High stakes on christmas night we had santa claus and carolers and christmas party for them and then they practiced, uh, the last two days. Uh, they've gotten healthy obviously. So is Georgia with having a month off between games. Um, so both teams are at full uh full capacity and ready to play. Ohio State has a great opportunity. We saw in 2017 and 2021. Both Alabama and Georgia did not win their conference but won the national championship. So Ohio State has seen it happen and Georgia is trying to be one of only 10 teams in the history of college football to go back to back. So a lot to play for in Atlanta and chick fil a beach ball a lot is on the line that's for sure. Gary stokan ceo and president of the peach Bowl will be watching on saturday. Gary. Thank you.