Unless something crazy happens, In the Loop is shutting down until Monday. Here are a few thoughts to entertain you in between stuffing your face, watching football and arguing with relatives.

A plethora of night football games in Athens this year is killing the local economy, according to an article by Christopher Byrne on the blog Eye on Sports Media.

“How could it be that a sport that brings 92,000+ fans to Athens six Saturdays a year can suddenly be an economic drag on business? It is not an easy answer and there are so many factors that come into play. The economy is bad. The team is not so good (although some will argue they are bad). Add to this the fact that Georgia has had four games televised at night on the ESPN Family of Networks, some of them on back to back weekends, and you have a perfect storm.”

CBS and ESPN’s 15-year contract to televise SEC football games resulted in four 7 p.m. or later starts this season, an unusually high number. As a result, Byrne says, fans are rolling into town Saturday afternoon rather than Friday evening, costing hotels and restaurants half their usual business. And, as any downtown business owner will tell you, gamedays are the difference between struggling to break even and turning a profit.

I’m not sure I completely buy the theory, considering many fans who arrive Friday for a noon start end up leaving after the game Saturday.

The schedule – quality of opponents – has a lot to do with how much businesses rake in. I noticed downtown starting to fill up Friday afternoon before the Auburn game, and everywhere was packed all day Saturday. When Kentucky came to town, downtown was probably less crowded than I’ve ever seen it for a conference game. Business owners also say that when the Dawgs win, fans spend more money.

The Athens-Atlanta link

I’m talking about mayoral races, not the Brain Train.

One interesting little coincidence about the Atlanta mayor’s race is that both Mary Norwood’s campaign manager, Roman Levit, and Kasim Reed’s, Tharon Johnson, used to work for Rep. John Barrow. Levit was Barrow’s chief of staff, and Johnson was his Athens-based district director.

Now, we have a link between Norwood and an Athens mayoral candidate, Tax Commissioner Nancy Denson. State Rep. Margaret Kaiser, D-Atlanta, recently joined a club of two by endorsing Norwood. Denson is Kaiser’s mother.

Meet the new blog, same as the old blog

JMac and Martin have revamped Beyond the Trestle. Check it out.

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