Georgia, Florida mull temporary sites for rivalry
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Don’t expect Georgia and Florida to play their annual rivalry game on campus sites anytime soon, if ever again.
The SEC heavyweights are exploring options to hold the game often referred to “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” at other neutral-site venues during the two years that Jacksonville is expecting a $2 billion renovation to EverBank Stadium and the surrounding area.
Although they haven’t completely ruled out playing a home-and-home series in 2026 and 2027, administrators are focused on letting cities with NFL-ready stadiums bid on the game, according to two people familiar with the planning. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the process hasn’t been formalized or finalized.
The next move is contingent on Jacksonville’s city council approving plans for a stadium overhaul that also would force the Jacksonville Jaguars to play home games in front of a reduced capacity (roughly 40,000) in 2026 and elsewhere in 2027. Georgia and Florida, meanwhile, would play outside Jacksonville for the first time in more than three decades.
In 2026, with Georgia scheduled to be the home team, the game likely would land at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, with a 50-50 ticket split as usual. The following year, with Florida as the home team, it could end up at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa or Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
The reason is simple: The schools can make more money playing the game at neutral-site venues like EverBank. The schools have played annually in Jacksonville since 1933, with a two-year hiatus while the Gator Bowl was being renovated before the Jaguars’ inaugural season. The game moved to Gainesville in 1994 and Athens, Georgia, the following year.
Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart has been outspoken about wanting to move the game back to campuses for recruiting purposes; NCAA rules prohibit coaches from having contact with recruits at neutral sites, although the home team can leave tickets for them.
But Smart would prefer face-to-face contact, something he could get if the game was played in Athens.
“I firmly believe that we’ll be able to sign better players by having it as a home-and-home because we’ll have more opportunities to get them to campus,” Smart said last season.
Smart backed off his comments earlier this week.
“I don’t really think about it anymore,” he said. “We are where we are. That really has not crossed my mind besides the offseason when I get asked about it. A lot more concerned with how we play than where we play.”
Florida coach Billy Napier has been quick to point out that “the underlying issue here is the economics.”
The payout from Jacksonville is roughly $3 million for each school in 2023, a figure that includes $1.25 million guaranteed plus a split of ticket revenue and concession sales. The guaranteed payout for each school increases to $1.5 million in 2024 and 2025, the final two years of the current contract.
Georgia also receives $350,000 annually to cover its charter flights, buses and lodging, while Florida receives $60,000 because no flights are required.
A Florida home game, by comparison, generates between $2 million and $5 million depending on the opponent. So a home-and-home series would bring in less revenue over a two-year span than a neutral-site game.
NEW YORK — Jen Pawol was in her hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee, when she got the call she had awaited for a decade.
She was going to make her major league debut this weekend, becoming the first woman umpire in a century and a half of big league baseball.
“I was overcome with emotion,” Pawol recalled Thursday, two days before she will break a gender barrier when she works the bases during Miami’s doubleheader at Atlanta. “It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while, and I just felt super full. I feel like a fully charged battery ready to go.”
Her voice quavering with emotion, Pawol talked about getting the news during a Wednesday conference call with director of umpire development Rich Rieker and vice president of umpire operations Matt McKendry.
Pawol thought back to her long road. In the early 1990s at West Milford High School in New Jersey, she had a summer conversation with Lauren Rissmeyer, the third baseman on the school’s softball team.
“‘Do you want to come umpire with me?'” Pawol remembered being asked. “I didn’t think twice about it. Lauren’s doing it, so I’m going to do it.”
Pawol’s pay was $15 per game.
“She took a field and I took a field,” Pawol said. “It was a one-umpire system. I had no idea what I was doing, but I got to put gear on and call balls and strikes, so I was in.”
A 1995 graduate at West Milford, which inducted her into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022, Pawol became a three-time all-conference softball selection pick at Hofstra.
After umpiring NCAA softball from 2010 to 2016, she was approached by then-big league ump Ted Barrett at an umpire camp in Binghamton, New York, in early 2015.
“Moreso than any female that I’d seen, she looked like she could handle the rigors of the job physically,” Barrett said Thursday. “But what impressed me was her willingness to learn. She seemed like a sponge, everything that we were teaching her. I’m proud that I made her aware of the opportunity.”
Barrett invited Pawol to attend a clinic in Atlanta and then a MLB tryout camp at Cincinnati that Aug. 15. He invited her to dinner in Atlanta with fellow big league umps Paul Nauert and Marvin Hudson and their wives.
“I warned her: ‘Look, this is what you’re up against. It’s going to be 10 years in the minor leagues before you sniff a big league field,'” Barrett said.
Pawol was among 38 hopefuls invited to the Umpire Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and started her pro umpiring career in the Gulf Coast League on June 24, 2016, working the plate when the GCL Tigers West played at the GCL Blue Jays.
She moved up to the New York/Penn League in 2017, the Midwest League after the first two weeks of the 2018 season, then worked the South Atlantic League in 2019, the High-A Midwest League in 2021, the Double-A Eastern League and the Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues in 2023. She was called in for big league spring training in 2024 and ’25.
“This has been over 1,200 minor league games, countless hours of video review trying to get better, and underneath it all has just been this passion and this love for the game of baseball,” she said. “This started in my playing days as a catcher and transformed over into an umpire, and I think it’s gotten even stronger as an umpire. Umpiring is for me, it’s in my DNA. It’s been a long, hard journey.”
Pawol is among eight women umpires currently in the minors. For her big league debut, she will join Chris Guccione’s crew in Atlanta, where she expects about 30 family and friends. She is to work the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader and call balls and strikes on Sunday.
Pawol was at third base Wednesday night as Jacksonville beat Nashville in the International League when Sounds third baseman Oliver Dunn congratulated her.
“If I make it to the big leagues,” he told her, “we will have both worked all the levels together.”
Pawol repeatedly thanked her minor league umpiring predecessors, mentioning several who exchanged calls or texts, including Christine Wren, Pam Postema and Ria Cortesio. Just after her promotion to Triple-A, Pawol met with Postema in Las Vegas.
“The last thing she said to me when I saw her was ‘Get it done!'” Powal explained. “So I texted her yesterday and said, ‘I’m getting it done!'”
Barrett will be watching from Oregon, where he is attending Northwest League games this weekend.
“The hopes of this are that it inspires,” he said. “Who knows, there’ll be a young lady watching the game on TV and says, ‘Hey, I’d like to try that.'”
PITTSBURGH — It took 47 major league games before Pirates ace Paul Skenes gave up seven hits to an opposing lineup.
Skenes’ record streak of allowing six or fewer hits ended at 46 starts Thursday night in a 7-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
According to OptaStats, the longest such streak to begin a career (excluding openers) previously belonged to Shohei Ohtani, who went 31 starts from 2018 to 2021 for the Los Angeles Angels.
Skenes (7-8) yielded seven hits over six innings Thursday night. He struck out eight and lowered his ERA to 1.94, lowest among qualified pitchers. He extended his scoreless streak at home to 27⅔ innings; he hasn’t allowed a run at PNC Park since June 8 against the Philadelphia Phillies — and that one was unearned.
“His stuff was elite,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said.
Skenes hasn’t permitted an earned run over his past five starts at PNC Park, the longest such stretch for a Pirates pitcher at home since earned runs became an official National League statistic in 1912. Skenes had shared the team record with Bob Harmon (1915) and Zane Smith (1990).
The 23-year-old right-hander is the youngest major league pitcher since 1920 with such a streak.
“Every time he goes out, he’s unbelievable, the way he’s able to attack hitters,” Kelly said.
Skenes has been especially effective against the Reds, with a 4-0 career record and 0.39 ERA to go with 33 strikeouts.
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