Think of how many bachelorettes that would have inconvenienced.
One of my favorite moments in Nashville history has nothing to do with country music or all of the history that’s been made here: It was when the NFL Draft ruined a bunch of bachelorette parties back in 2019.
With the Draft taking place on Broadway, and hundreds of thousands of football fans traveling to Music City for the event, bachelorettes quickly began complaining when they realized that their weekend was going to be spent surrounded by a bunch of dudes who just wanted their team to pick a certain college kid over another. Pedal taverns and party buses couldn’t go down Broadway, bars were packed with 300-lb dudes in football jerseys, and the bachelorettes were livid. It was amazing.
Well, it almost happened again.
ESPN is bringing College GameDay to Nashville this weekend for the first time since 2008, with the Vanderbilt Commodores taking on the Missouri Tigers in a top-25 matchup that could end up having implications for the SEC Championship. (Who would have ever thought that Vandy would still be playing for a championship at the end of October?)
The show will feature guest picker Nate Bargatze, a comedian from Middle Tennessee and a longtime Vandy fan, as well as performances from country artists Kenny Chesney and Dierks Bentley, live from the Wyatt Lawn on the campus of Vanderbilt in midtown Nashville.
But apparently, that wasn’t their first choice for the location of the show.
During an interview with the Vanderbilt Hustler, athletic director Candice Lee revealed that the ESPN crew initially wanted to set up on Broadway in downtown Nashville:
“Well, quite frankly, when the ESPN GameDay Crew came, I think it’s okay to say the initial interest was in Broadway. We hit at least three different spots on campus; there was talk of Broadway and there was talk of Centennial as an option.”
The school, though, wanted to host the event on campus, and began pitching the ESPN crew on spots around Vanderbilt:
“Knowing that they have a pretty decent footprint, our team showed them Wyatt and we spent quite a bit of time making the case for why. It’s their decision, but we, in spending time with them, made an impassioned plea as to why it needed to be on campus because we deserve it.”
Obviously it’s a great opportunity for Vanderbilt, and one that they truly do deserve after the success they’ve had over the past year or so and the turnaround they’ve made in football. Vandy has been one of the most fun teams in the country to cheer for, with quarterback Diego Pavia being a lightning rod no matter who he’s playing.
But I’ve gotta admit, it would have been great to have GameDay on Broadway too, because we could have gotten a repeat of the 2019 NFL Draft when all the bachelorettes were mad at the football fans for ruining their parties.
And come on, Pat McAfee on Broadway? That would have just been electric. Maybe one day…
