College football season is right around the corner. I can just about smell the tailgate grills and hear the trumpeter warm up for the Battle Hymn at Sanford Stadium.
Of course, part of what makes college football so great is the rivalries. For my Georgia Bulldogs, our in-state rival is Georgia Tech. We’ve traditionally played the Yellow Jackets the Saturday after Thanksgiving in a rivalry that took on the name “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.”
For some reason, the powers that be moved last year’s game to Black Friday, and it resulted in an eight-overtime nailbiter, with the Bulldogs coming out on top. The joke is that we had to play so many overtimes so that the game could end on Saturday as it should have.
This year, we’re playing on Black Friday again, and the two teams will face off at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Naturally, the game has a corporate sponsor — what doesn’t nowadays? — and the corporate sponsorship is ruining the title of this major rivalry game.
Instead of Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, this year’s game is going by the most awkward name in years. The Dawgs and the Yellow Jackets are playing in the Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic, and nobody on either side is thrilled with it.
Related: There Are No Participation Trophies in College Football — Unless You Play for Georgia Tech
“If modern college football has taught us anything, it’s that when you have the opportunity to minimize an incredibly recognizable rivalry between 2 passionate fan bases, you absolutely have to take it,” writes Derek Peterson at Saturday Down South. “Nothing screams ‘pageantry’ like milquetoast game names with a sponsor flag slapped over the top of it.”
I'm sure Invesco QQQ paid a pretty penny to sponsor this game, but it's a mouthful of a sponsor name. It also drains this game of the wild and crazy history that Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate represents.
It’s Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, and it’s a rivalry game that has been played almost exclusively on campus since 1893.
— Jon Tweets Sports (@jontweetssports) August 1, 2025
What the hell are we doing? 🤦♂️ https://t.co/oTz9LYyyan
Clean, Old-Fashioned, Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic https://t.co/VsOdBiTuN1
— Wes Blankenship (@Wes_nship) August 1, 2025
Clean Old Fashion Hate has been turned into the QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic
— GT GOLD/WHITE (@collegespu) August 1, 2025
I literally want to throw up https://t.co/kXTYWDUHej
Also, to your point of corporate marketing, why did Atlanta feel they needed to name these games when they already have a kickoff classic every year?
— The Bulldawg Report (@ReportBulldawg) August 2, 2025
This would give that stadium 3 games sporsored by corporations a year.
- Aflac Kickoff Game
- Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron…
Even people outside the Georgia sports sphere are noticing how dumb the name for this game is. It’s ripe for mockery like nothing else in college football right now.
College Football rivalry names are the best. The Iron Bowl. The Game. The Red River Shootout. The Inaugural Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic.
— Joseph Manero🇻🇦 (@JosephManero) August 1, 2025
Georgia and Georgia Tech play in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium this fall.
— CFB Kings (@CFBKings) August 1, 2025
Instead of the rivalry’s usual name “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate”, it has been branded as the “Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic”
Having the game at MBS instead of Sanford or Bobby Dodd is one thing,… pic.twitter.com/ej91RTd7hj
The NFL sucks because it’s corporate and soulless.
— The 4 Horsemen Podcast (@HorsemenPod) August 2, 2025
They’re trying to do the same to college football. Don’t let them. Remind them our tradition, pageantry, and passion can’t be bought or dismissed by advertisers. https://t.co/hKeenW8uor
So, Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic then....doesn't exactly roll off the tongue as a rivalry name. https://t.co/tTiRnI0zHZ
— CollegeFootballUKView (@CFBUKView) August 2, 2025
To be fair, two other teams will play in the Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic next year, but slapping a sponsor name on a longstanding rivalry game is a bad idea in general. The corporate sponsors who ruin almost everything they touch will insist on making sure the world knows that this game is the Invesco QQQ Atlanta Gridiron Classic, and we all know that ESPN will dutifully follow. But I can assure you that the fans of the teams playing in this game will call it what it really is: Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.
If you're sick of seeing everything sacred — even college football rivalries — steamrolled by soulless branding deals, you're not alone.
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