Navy has a long football history with San Diego. The Mids won the first Holiday Bowl in 1978 and played at San Diego State in 1994 and 1997. The large naval presence in the city makes it a home away from home for the Mids, so much so that when the San Diego Bowl Game Association created the Poinsettia Bowl in 2005, they did so with Navy in mind.
That thinking paid off. Navy has appeared in the Poinsettia Bowl more than any other team, and attendance has been much higher in those games. The average attendance for Poinsettia Bowls without Navy is 30,076. The average with Navy is 39,272, including the three highest-attended games.
Unfortunately for the bowl committee, Navy’s membership in the American means that they will no longer be playing in the Poinsettia Bowl; eligible Navy teams will instead be selected by one of the conference’s contracted bowls. By bidding on the Navy-Notre Dame game, the SDBGA is able to maintain their relationship with the Naval Academy, with the added bonus of tapping into Notre Dame’s traveling roadshow (which incidentally has never been to San Diego).
We’ve known of San Diego’s interest in this game for a few months now, but so far there hasn’t been any news about the 2020 game. Baltimore has traditionally hosted most of Navy’s higher-profile games, but could that be changing? As an independent, Navy had a history of playing games around the country. Now that they are a member of the American, their schedules are going to consist of 8 conference games plus Army, Notre Dame, and Air Force every year. Maybe playing Notre Dame in more non-traditional locations is a way to keep that coast-to-coast element to Navy’s schedules.
We’ll find out when the 2020 game is announced. In the meantime, as a San Diego native living in Jacksonville, the last two weeks have been pretty good to me.
The Birddog 
Pumped, stoked, psyched.
So do people like seeing the game move around, or would you prefer it played in Baltimore most years?
For selfish reasons, I like Baltimore. Baltimore is nice because it’s local and I get to go to the games.
But for the good of the program and the team, keep moving it around. But only to great places. Moving it around makes great sense, especially for recruiting and for Navy Fans stationed all over.
NotreDame vs Navy in Ireland 2012 drew the largest crowd that had traveled from the United States for any international American sporting event……ever!
To continue having the game hosted in other places other than the typical SouthBend/Meadowlands/Philly/Baltimore – is certainly welcoming in my opinion. The previous locations aren’t bad at all, it just breaks up the monotony for lack of a better word. Media exposure would increase for the game and that’s a win-win.
I prefer to see it in Baltimore, so it is more of a home game. A one-off here and there is cool, but if every home game becomes a road show, I’d prefer otherwise.
As a citizen of Huntsville, I’d like to see NAVY-ND played in Nashville for the same parochial reasons that those in the DC-Balimer region want it close to where they live.
I like the road show – just stay away from the midwest :)
I like it moving, especially if they’re going to concentrate on areas with high Navy visibility already. I could see Seattle in 2020 or San Francisco. I think this becomes the game that gets moved around on the schedule and only once ever 4 or 5 times will be a home game around Baltimore/DC.
I’ve always preferred making Baltimore Navy’s second home but I understand the sentiment behind wanting the game to move around.
Re: Seattle — Air Force played a “home game” vs Washington in the Seahawks stadium in 2005 and it was a disaster — I think AF lost money on it, and the attendance was 26k. They sold the game rights to a private sports marketing company and it didn’t work out.
Yeah but that’s Air Force
Is it wrong when I laugh and enjoy hearing about AirForce’s misfortunes?
They usually deserve it.
i thought i remember a few years back that the goal was to have every other home game somewhere outside of MD. but as long as every other or every third game is there, i’m fine with the game moving around. Navy-ND in Baltimore isn’t national news. but these these games are to some extent. and if it get’s us outside of what will become a fairly regular (if not fairly wide) geographic pattern, it’s important. we’ve always done this a little bit, but life in the AAC will make this more important.