Arkansas Changes War Memorial Stadium Deal; Will Play One Game In Little Rock Through 2018

Longtime Razorback reporter Harry King is reporting this morning that Arkansas and War Memorial Stadium have agreed to make changes to their contract to only play one game per year in the old Little Rock stadium through 2018.

The Hogs had agreed to play two games per year at War Memorial through 2016, but starting next season, that will be cut back to one game in exchange for two extra years on the agreement.

This isn't a shocking development, as with Arkansas' agreement to play Texas A&M in Arlington for at least the next decade, that's an extra game every other year not played on campus.

The shocking tidbit from King's report is that the 2014 Little Rock game would be against Georgia. I'd long believed the days of seeing really quality opponents in Little Rock was gone, and that War Memorial would only get the least exciting non-conference and conference games on the schedule, which next year one would think would be Ole Miss, but if it is in fact Georgia, wow.

*****UPDATE******

More from Harry King:

Two of the five games will be SEC games, so presumably, from 2015 through 2018, one of the four games will be against an SEC opponent. Expect that to be either 2016 or 2018, when the A&M game is technically a road game for Arkansas and the Hogs still get 4 SEC games in Arkansas.

Financial details:

Commission chairman Kevin Crass, who negotiated the agreement with Arkansas athletics director Jeff Long, explained that the UA will pay the stadium $400,000 per year each of the next three years. The UA also will pay stadium rental of $75,000 for the one game played in Little Rock in each of those years.

In 2017 and 2018, the university will not be charged rent for the one game in Little Rock.