Clemson Should Repeat History, Flood Atlanta with $2 Bills

In hopes of keeping Clemson Tiger fans out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the Labor Day opener, Georgia Tech caps ticket sales at 42,500.

Bart Boatwright / USA TODAY Sports Network (2018)

CLEMSON, S.C. — Gary Stokan, the CEO and President of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl made it clear last week that it was not his organization’s idea to close off the upper deck of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta when No. 4 Clemson plays Georgia Tech on Labor Day night as part of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic.

On Saturday, when No. 3 Georgia plays 11th-ranked Oregon, 71,000 people are expected to sell out the same venue in the other Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic game. Clemson fans alone would have done the same in its game, but the folks at Georgia Tech made sure that did not happen.

Why?

According to Stokan, Georgia Tech wanted to have the same experience and atmosphere for the Clemson game as it had last year when the Yellow Jackets closed off the upper deck prior to their upset of then-No. 20 North Carolina.

I call hogwash!

Tech closed off the upper deck of last year’s UNC game because they were not going to come close to selling 71,000 tickets in that stadium, especially with the Yellow Jackets program being down. When the Tar Heels played at Bobby Dodd Stadium in 2019, attendance was 45,044, nearly 10,000 less than its 55,000-seat capacity.

Georgia Tech capped last year’s UNC game at Mercedes-Benz at 42,500, due to a lack of interest in Geoff Collins’ program. So, from a cosmetic standpoint, it made sense to close off the upper deck.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this time last year, Tech officials planned to keep the capacity for the Clemson game to 71,000.

What changed their mind?

Obviously, there is a lack of interest from the Georgia Tech side, but not at Clemson.

Tech’s average home attendance last year was 37,333, its lowest home attendance since 1989. Clemson, on the other hand, has sold 55,000 season tickets for the upcoming 2022 season, 60,000 if you count the 5,000 season tickets purchased by the students.

Also, consider this: Clemson has a large alumni base in the Atlanta area and Clemson fans are known for traveling well, especially when a game is just a few hours up the road from the Upstate of South Carolina.

In my opinion, the reason Tech is capping the game at 42,500 is simple. The Yellow Jackets want to keep Clemson fans out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Clemson received an allotment of 4,300 tickets from Georgia Tech to sell to its fans, per ACC guidelines. Tiger fans surely snatched up more through the secondary market, like they always do when they go to Georgia Tech.

Not counting 2020, when Bobby Dodd Stadium was capped at 11,000 due to COVID restrictions, the Clemson games of 2016 (53,932) and 2018 (50,595) were the Yellow Jackets’ biggest crowds in each of those respected seasons. In both cases, there was a strong Clemson presence in the stadium.

This is not the first time Georgia Tech has tried something like this. In 1977, after seeing Clemson was turning the corner with its football program, then Yellow Jackets’ head coach Pepper Rodgers backed out of his deal to play Clemson in 1978 and discontinued the series altogether.

Of course, this led to the birth of Clemson’s $2 bill tradition.

George Bennett, left, former Executive Secretary of IPTAY and long-time Clemson supporter, talks with former Clemson Sports Information Director Tim Bourret after a Clemson University football press conference on October 22, 2019. Bennett is the man responsible for starting Clemson's $2 bill tradition, which began with Clemson's trip to Georgia Tech in 1977 :: Ken Ruinard / USA TODAY Sports Network

At the time, IPTAY’s Executive Secretary, George Bennett wanted to show the businesses and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce how much of an impact the Clemson fan base and alumni made on the local economy when they came to town.

“We weren’t going to any bowl games at that time, so this was our big game of the year,” Bennett recalled. “We are going to Atlanta, and we are going to have a good time.

“We were taking 15,000 to 17,000 people down there for that weekend and our people would go down there on Wednesday and the wives would shop and all this kind of stuff and stay at those fancy hotels and all of that. We really enjoyed going down there.”

That’s when Bennett came up with an idea that has turned into one of the more unique traditions in college football … Clemson’s $2 bill tradition.

“I got the idea and went to (then-Clemson head coach) Charlie Pell and said, ‘Here is what we need to do if it is okay with you. We are going to take two-dollar bills down there and we are going to show the people in Atlanta how much money they are missing by doing this.’ We publicized, wrote letters about it, put it in the IPTAY Report and told them to take two-dollar bills with them,” Bennett said.

The Clemson fans did not let Bennett down. Tiger fans covered the city with $2 bills. They paid for their hotel rooms with $2 bills. They shopped using $2 bills and they paid for all their meals with $2 bills. It became such a story, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote several stories about it, while local television stations reported on it as well.

The $2 bill was first commissioned in 1862, and they have not been issued since 2003. When one makes its way into a business, the shop, restaurant or hotel owner is going to notice. It is going to leave an impression.

“The waitresses in the hotels and restaurants were talking about it. Cab drivers, bellhops, and all of that,” Bennett said while laughing. “Pepper Rodgers told me in Memphis several years later that was the best promotion that he had ever heard. He said, ‘You really got your point across to the people in Atlanta and to Georgia Tech and how much money they were going to be missing.’”

It seems like on Labor Day, Clemson fans need to fill the city of Atlanta with $2 bills, just to let the city know how much money Georgia Tech has cost them once again.

Note: Excerpts from Will Vandervort's book, Hidden History of Clemson Football, were used in this story. If you wish to purchase this book, you can find it here.

Want to join in on the discussion? 100% FREE! Interact with fellow Tiger fans and hear directly from publisher Zach Lentz, deputy editor Brad Senkiw, recruiting analyst Jason Priester and staff writer Will Vandervort on any subject. Click here to become a member of the ALL CLEMSON message board community today!