Florida-Georgia game to remain in Jacksonville from 2028-31 after schools strike massive deal with city

Football

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Image Credit: Georgia Athletics

The Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs meet for the 102nd time on Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida. The annual series, once known as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, has been played in Jacksonville all but two times since 1933, and it will now remain there through 2031 after a new four-year deal was struck between the teams and the city.

While there will be a two-year break with the Gators and Bulldogs playing their 2026 game in Atlanta and 2027 game in Tampa, both programs will receive $1.5 million per year from Jacksonville during those seasons for agreeing to keep the series in Duval County from 2028-31, per a non-binding memorandum of understanding between all three parties viewed by Only Gators on Friday.

Florida and Georgia will then receive $10 million each for the 2028 and 2029 games and $10.5 million each for the 2030 and 2031 games. These figures are nearly seven times larger than the $1.5 million UF and UGA are each being paid to meet at EverBank Stadium in 2024.

Other terms of the new deal with Jacksonville include a $350,000 travel stipend for Georgia ($60,000 for Florida) with each program agreeing to purchase 25,000 to 30,000 tickets per game at an average price of approximately $250.

The Florida-Georgia game will be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (2026) and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa (2027) amid ongoing EverBank Stadium construction, according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy. It is expected that the Gators and Dawgs will receive significant sums from those facilities as well, though those terms have yet to be disclosed.

Orlando’s Camping World Stadium and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium were also considered as hosts of the 2027 game.

The Florida-Georgia game will be played in Atlanta for the first time in series history in 2026, though the 2027 contest will mark a return to Tampa for the first time since a 1919 meeting, the third game in series history. The Gators are 2-0 over the Dawgs in games played outside Jacksonville since 1933.

Florida trails Georgia 44-55-2 in the all-time series with the Dawgs having won three straight and six of the last seven meetings since 2017. The Gators had won 21 of the prior 27 meetings and still hold a 22-12 series lead since 1990.

The 2024 game will mark the fourth straight in which UF is unranked while UGA enters as a top-five team nationally. Florida has lost the last three meetings by an average of 24 points.