Penn State's football game against Indiana on Nov. 20, 2010 will be played in Washington, D.C. at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins.
The game originally had been scheduled for Bloomington, but Indiana University made a deal with the Redskins to play at FedEx Field. The Redskins will pay Indiana $3 million, a lucrative deal for the Hoosiers, who according to the Herald Times of Bloomington make less than $1 million for a home game.
Indiana will be responsible for selling 7,000 tickets, its university Web site said. FedEx Field seats 91,704 fans, and it should feel more like a home game for Penn State with an overwhelming majority of the fans expected to be Nittany Lion supporters.
"We are very excited about the opportunity to play the 2010 Indiana football game at FedEx Field, one of the nation's premier sports facilities," PSU athletic director Tim Curley said in a university statement. "This game will provide a great chance for some of our players to play close to home and for our fans and the more than 40,000 Penn State alumni in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C. to see the Nittany Lions play in person."
Penn State does not have to make concessions of any kind -- either next season or for future games -- for the opportunity to play in Washington. University spokesman Jeff Nelson said it will be like a normal road game with the same revenue-sharing framework.
So essentially, Penn State will get an advantage of one less true road game and have the benefit of a huge crowd in its favor in a hotbed of recruiting for the Lions.
Indiana, meanwhile, will get a big payday.
"Obviously, it's very positive for us financially," Indiana athletic director Fred Glass told the Bloomington newspaper. "When you rank second to the bottom in the conference in money spent per sport, you have to color outside the lines and be open to new ways to generate revenue."
Glass also said in a university statement that the game is "a unique opportunity to partner with an outstanding organization like the Washington Redskins to bring Hoosier football to within an afternoon's drive of all our fans and tens of thousands of alumni that live along the eastern seaboard. We believe that this will be an outstanding, bowl-like experience for our student-athletes, provide us with added recruiting visibility on the east coast, and will serve as a wonderful opportunity for our student-athletes to spend time in and around the nation's capital."
It will be Penn State's first game in the D.C. area since a visit to Maryland in 1993.
