When Rutgers and Maryland moved together to the Big Ten in 2014, Jim Delaney was hoping that the two newcomers to the conference would start to develop a rivalry of sorts. One way to ensure that doesn’t happen is moving a home game for one of the teams to a neutral site, which is apparently what has happened with the upcoming game between the schools on November 4, 2017.
Terps football game scheduled to ply at Rutgers now will move to Yankee stadium MD source tells me. #Terps
— Chick Hernandez (@CHICKatCSN) May 26, 2016
The arrangement was scheduled by now fired and disgraced former Rutgers AD Julie Hermann and new AD Pat Hobbs, who coincidentally threw out the first pitch at the Yankees game on Tuesday with his new head football coach Chris Ash, is reviewing the details of Hermann’s agreement with the team.
“There were discussions by the previous administration with the Yankees and an agreement in principle was reached,” Hobbs told NJ Advance Media on Friday morning. “I’m reviewing those terms and we’ll announce our intention in due course.”
Rutgers has played at Yankee Stadium before for bowl games and a “road” game against Army in 2011.
“There are a tremendous amount of Rutgers alums who work here in the city,” Hobbs said. “It’s important for our relationship if we can be with an iconic organization like the Yankees. They have a lot of the history that we would like to start building at Rutgers.”
Comparing Rutgers football to the Yankees is currently only apt when saying “both started playing a long time ago and aren’t very good right now”.
RU makes about $1.6 million per home game in Piscataway according to NJ.com, but could make more than that at Yankee Stadium, depending on the situation. Their opponents, Maryland, have made a habit of moving games off campus, including recent home games against West Virginia and Penn State, which were played in Baltimore, and a future home game against Texas in 2018 which will be played at FedEx Field in Landover.
[NJ.com]