Ad Disclosure
Five Observations from a Short Trip to the Arizona Desert and Another College Football Venue
Published:
My dad and I try to go to one WVU road game each year. We went to Texas and Oklahoma, then took a COVID and young kids break before resuming with Arizona State last week. The goal is to see all of the Big 12 venues, but if they keep expanding the conference we’re gonna need 20 years to complete the task.
Anyway, some takeaways from Phoenix and Tempe:
Philly international
The Philadelphia airport really is not that bad in 2025. It’s not the greatest airport in the entire world, but it’s perfectly average and I haven’t had a bad experience at PHL in a long time.
It seems like people just shit on it to shit on it these days, a continuation of the 2005-era thought that they were using the airport of a third-world country. It did seem like that at one point, with dirty bathrooms and crowded terminals and an underwhelming array of food and drink options, plus assholes as far as the eye can see (both passengers and employees), but that’s just not the case anymore. The renovated terminals are cleaner and transportation is pretty easy. You don’t have to take some 20-minute monorail ride to get to the economy lot or rental cars or anything like that. It’s been a minute since I’ve had to use the baggage claim, but the last couple of experiences with it were totally fine.
Bottom line, it’s a totally normal airport. Not the best, not the worst.
In-N-Out Burger
It’s okay. Is there something I’m missing? I just don’t understand what all of the fuss is about. It was a decent burger with decent fries but the place was completely full at 11:45 a.m. and they had at least 20 people in the kitchen working their butts off. It made Chic-fil-A look like the minor leagues, this operation they were cranking out.
Honestly, this might sound stupid, but I don’t think In-N-Out is any better than the Freddy’s joints we have around here. You know the steakburger and custard place with the 1950s vibe? Yeah. Someone explain to me what I’m supposed to be experiencing at In-N-Out, because it’s not clicking for me.
Sports talk radio done differently
We listened to Phoenix sports talk radio while driving around. It was 98.7 FM and basically the opposite of Philly, New York, and Boston radio. I didn’t hear a single hot take the entire week, no rage bait or “concern” radio. “How concerned are you about the Eagles 8-2 start?” None of that. They also didn’t take phone calls, not at all during the week. The only phone calls we heard were on the Arizona State postgame show, which was programmed like the Rob Ellis postgame Eagles show and therefore predicated on calls.
For the most part, it resembled early-days Fanatic, or maybe the Glen Macnow and Anthony Gargano WIP era, that time about 15-20 years ago when it was straightforward sports discussion without fishing for engagement or trying to trade or cut everybody on the team. Every daypart was just two hosts sitting there at the microphone, talking about the Cardinals, Suns, Diamondbacks, then some national and college sports while mixing in “guy talk.” The best way I can describe it is early 2010s WIP without phone calls.
The more you travel, the more you realize that northeast sports radio programming is entirely different than how they do it in the rest of the country.
11 a.m. football
These folks are on mountain time, so two hours behind, and the Big 12 decided to start this game at 1 Eastern, which meant 11 a.m. in the desert.
Honestly? Didn’t hate it. You wake up, eat breakfast, get your stuff together, head down to the stadium. Maybe tailgating all day long is your thing, but this had the vibe of “let’s kick off and get this thing going.” Maybe it results in a crowd that isn’t fully awake yet, but I didn’t get that sense inside Mountain America Stadium. And the nice thing about getting done early is you have the rest of the day to watch the college football slate or do whatever you want to do.
I didn’t hate it.
Friendly fan interaction
The ASU fans were cool. Pretty chill. If the northeast is full of high strung and stressed out assholes like ourselves, and the Bible Belt south is a little too slow, then the pace of the Arizona/California area and west coast in general seems like it’s somewhere right in the middle. It’s relaxed without being lazy, if that makes sense.
We were informed by the ASU fans that they really don’t like the Arizona Wildcats, as evidenced by the one waitress who told us that U of A fans “are all white trash.” I’m sure if we went to Tucson for the next game, they’d tell us the ASU fans are the real trash.
One thing I’ve noticed in travels to these college football venues is that conference realignment has really turned fan interaction upside down. Everybody is super-friendly. Why? Because there’s no history between the teams. Texas, Oklahoma, and ASU fans were super cool and welcoming. They know that people from West Virginia and Cincy and UCF are probably out in Austin, Norman, and Tempe for the first time. Vice versa for those fans coming east. And likewise, if you’re a Penn State fan who goes to UCLA or USC, you’d probably have the same experience. You can’t have any animosity with teams and fans you don’t traditionally play, so it creates this environment where things are… almost too friendly? There wasn’t even any ribbing at all, be it good natured or hostile. It was just each side cheering for their team and then saying “good game” afterward.
Anyway, 9 out of 10 for Arizona State, would recommend. Now, let’s get it back to the Eagles.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com