From the AJC, via Jen on Twitter:
In a 142 to 10 vote Thursday, the Georgia House of Representatives passed legislation to stop making out-of-state university sports mascot car tags.
That is, unless the Legislatures in those states begin making Georgia plates for Bulldog Nation citizens living in diaspora in South Carolina, Alabama and Florida.
I received an email a few days ago that the UT Alumni Association here in Atlanta has just over 500 paid applications for UT plates. Prior to this law being passed, they needed 1,000 applications. I’m not sure yet how this effects their plans, but I emailed the person in charge and asked her. I’m guessing she won’t be happy.
Funny how the government here lurrrrrrrrves out-of-town fans when their dollars are coming into town for the SEC Championship Game. I wonder if it would be effective for out-of-state universities to lobby the SEC to move the title game to a different state. I would support that even though I live here.
Update 3:10 p.m. Hey look, the SEC is only under contract at the Dome through 2009. Looks like I’ll be writing a few letters tonight.
Update 11:05 p.m. It’s possible this law wouldn’t effect the UT plates, according to the Georgia Sports Blog’s reading of it. Waiting to hear the UT Alumni Association’s version before firing off any letters.
While I’d be glad if it didn’t effect the UT plates, it’s still a crappy law. If I’m siding with Florida fans, that is indisputable. I hate Florida. If Florida was serving me dinner, I would leave it a penny tip just so it knew I didn’t forget to tip.
Do you know any of our neighboring states’ policies toward out-of-state college plates? I’m not insinuating anything, I honestly don’t know.
Actually, now that I think about it for a split second, this is retarded regardless of neighboring states’ policies. The plates are a viable source of revenue, they boost the morale of our relocated out-of-state alumni, and it made Georgia (the state) seem diplomatic in the always emotional SEC.
That will be a good thing to look up when writing my letters, but I’m guessing they don’t do anything as stupid or we would have heard about it by now.
I do think it’s funny how we have so many different license plates in this state.
(And I say that as someone who just bought the newest of the Balkan states, the “historic preservation” plate.)
I didn’t mean for my last comment to be a poem, btw.
Rusty give me a break.
This is college football, not pansy ass golf. We shouldn’t cater to out of state teams. Tax revenue or not. If TN, FL or AL passed a similar law, I wouldn’t be whining.
I don’t think any other states that I’m aware of allow out of state alumni associations to get custom license plates. I’ve certainly never seen it in either FL or MA. (OK, so nobody in MA gives a crap about football, but still…)
(that should read college football…because obviously they give big heaps of crap about the Patriots.)
Jen,
You don’t live in any of those states, so your opinion wouldn’t matter there anyway.
I live in Georgia and as such will complain loudly if my state government passes a stupid law that potentially costs my school’s alumni association two years of work.
Sara,
From this AP coverage of the same story:
This also marks the first time I remember agreeing with Bobby Franklin on something.
You guys who hate “too many” plates should visit VA. There are 160 specialty plate in Virginia, 85 of which are for different colleges and universities including out of state representative FSU, PSU, OSU, TxA&M, UNC, NCSU, UF, AU, and even GT. Also, fwiw, Virginia has the highest per capita number of personalized plates.
OMG.
There must be a certain tipping point where the number of different plates impacts the potential revenue to all the different organizations sponsoring them. There’s probably a mathematical equation for that. I did take a class in game theory my freshman year of college, but all I remember is the professor using the Kitty Genovese murder as an example.
/digression
Strange. Maybe it’s just that nobody ever met the threshhold in FL? Because I have seriously never seen a plate down there for an out of state school.
Sara, yeah, it sounds like it’s really hard to get a plate in Florida, unlike Tennessee or Virginia.