By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The “World’s Largest Cocktail Party” has become a staple in college football and the sports world for the game, the atmosphere, and the pageantry around one of (if not the single) best rivalries in College Football. Each year half of EverBank Stadium, Home to the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars is filled with red and black while half is filled with blue and orange.

Since 1933, all but two Georgia/Florida (or Florida/Georgia depending on which side you sit) matchups have taken place in Jacksonville. But the question raises…Why Jacksonville?

The only matchups since 1933 that haven’t taken place in Jacksonville were in 1994 & 1995 because the Gator Bowl had been demolished, and the (then) Jacksonville Municipal Stadium construction was still in progress as the ‘94 meeting moved to Gainesville & ’95 called Athens home.

1933 wasn’t the first time the two met in Jacksonville, as a matter of fact just the second all-time meeting came in Duval County in 1915.

Leading into the 1933 season, administrators from both schools had talked about moving the game to a neutral site, but where?

Florida Historian Norm Carlson said in an interview with Florida Football that transportation was the reason…

“They moved that game to Jacksonville in 1933 because fans of both schools could easily get there by train,” said Carlson in a 2016 interview. “It turned out right. The game was sold out the first year and from then on that was held in Jacksonville.”

That’s one reason, but if you ask ten historians, you may get ten different answers. So why else has this 80-year tradition stood?

You have to remember back in the early 1900s college football stadiums weren’t the cathedrals they are today, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for rivalry games across the country to be held at a neutral site to allow for a larger crowd.

Georgia historian Loran Smith said in a 2023 interview with 11Alive in Atlanta, “ “Georgia had a rickety old baseball field which served as the football field. We played Georgia Tech in Atlanta every year for a number of years.”

There have been many conversations about moving this game over the years, but administrators from both sides still see the value of playing in the bigger city.

Jacksonville wasn’t the only neutral site for this game. The first ever meeting between the two took place in Macon while also seeing stops in Tampa (1919) and Savannah (1928 & 1930). Athens has hosted the game five times while Gainesville has only seen this matchup inside the city limits twice (1931 & 1994).

In recent years there has been some questions surrounding the Jaguars rebuilding EverBank Stadium and what would happen to this game, but all parties have an agreed to extend the option in the current contract and keep the game in Jacksonville until at least 2025.

While Georgia is still trying to prove it’s at the elite level in the game, and Florida is trying to get their program right, you can throw it all out the window. The World’s Largest Cocktail Party will be rocking in Duval County!