UWBadgers.com promotes the season-opening Badger football game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay against LSU:

The 2016 college football season opener pitting Wisconsin vs. LSU could be played anywhere on the planet and it would be a marquee event.

Powerhouse schools from the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences rarely make time for one another outside of bowl games, so when they do the national spotlight is going to be intense regardless of where the meeting takes place.

This is one of those moments when the venue makes the contest ultra-special.

UW will play the Tigers in Green Bay on Sept. 3 in the Lambeau Field College Classic, marking the first time a major college game will be played at the legendary 59-year-old NFL shrine.

“Tradition-rich Lambeau,” Wisconsin Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said. “You mention that name and people’s eyes light up.”

Though it will be played in the state and 150 miles from Madison, it is classified as a neutral-site game. The format is similar to 2014 when UW opened the season playing the Tigers at NRG Stadium in Houston.

A sellout crowd of 71,599 saw LSU rally for a 28-24 victory over the Badgers two years ago, but it’s expected that tickets to the rematch will be much harder to come by at 80,735-seat Lambeau Field.

According to a dispersal plan drawn up by Packers officials, Wisconsin will get 40,000 tickets, LSU 20,000 and the NFL club will control the rest, which consists mostly of premium seating (suite and club seat). Ticket prices range from $91 to $118. Student tickets will cost $48. …

This marks the third straight season the Badgers will open with a neutral-site game against an opponent from the SEC. In addition to the loss to LSU in ’14, they dropped a 35-17 decision to eventual national champion Alabama at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, last September.

All three games were negotiated separately, according to Alvarez, who added there are multiple benefits to playing them at neutral sites.

“I think it sends a message that we want to schedule stronger,” he said. “Our league has made a commitment that we’re going to improve our non-conference games.

“I think it’s healthy. I think it’s good for our players and staff to really focus in the offseason. I think that it’s fun for our fans — especially this one because you’re playing in-state.”

Alvarez said there have been preliminary talks with the Packers about playing future neutral-site games at Lambeau Field. UW currently has an opening for its 2018 season opener.

“It’s easier to get a neutral-site game,” Alvarez said. “Some schools don’t want to play a home-and-home. They’d rather do a one-year deal than home-and-home.”

Alvarez said multiple Power Five schools have expressed an interest in having a home-and-home series with the Badgers and he’ll continue to pursue such an arrangement.

Neutral-site opportunities provide flexibility at a time when the Big Ten is moving from an eight-game schedule to a nine-outing format. UW bases its annual budget on staging seven home games at Camp Randall Stadium, but there will be years when there will only be four league games at home instead of five, and that revenue void needs to be filled.

Demand for Wisconsin-LSU tickets figures to rival the moment in 2011 when Nebraska made its highly-anticipated Big Ten debut at Camp Randall.

Fans of the Cornhuskers began arriving in Madison four days before the game. There were so many of them that they rented out Union South for a viewing party and UW officials obliged the throng by setting up a theater area outside the stadium for those who couldn’t get tickets.

If there’s similar interest from LSU fans, accommodations could possibly be made at the Resch Center across the street from Lambeau. That decision would involve Green Bay president Mark Murphy and his staff.

“We’ll have to see how tickets go and what the demand is,” Alvarez said. “If it makes sense, that’s something we’d look into.

“The Packers have been great. Murph and his whole crew have been easy to work with. They’ve always been very cooperative with us and I look forward to working with them.”

The Badgers have played football games elsewhere in the state going back to 1889 — Beloit, Marinette and Milwaukee — but never in Green Bay.

The Wisconsin men’s hockey team played an outdoor game at Lambeau Field in 2006, but that’s it.

There is, however, a potential major problem with the opponent. The New Orleans Times-Picayune and States-Item reports:

Gov. John Bel Edwards laid out an absolute worst case scenario Thursday night (Feb. 11) for Louisiana if state lawmakers refuse to go along with the package of tax increases he has proposed.

In a rare statewide televised address, Edwards told viewers that the state would be forced to take extreme action — such as throwing people with off of kidney dialysis and shutting down hospice services — if new taxes didn’t go into place over the next few months.

“The health care services that are in jeopardy literally mean the difference between life and death,” Edwards said during a live address carried on several television stations.

The governor didn’t stop at health care services, but also detailed catastrophic cuts to higher education. He said new revenue was needed to prevent universities from running out of money before the semester ends. LSU, the state’s wealthiest higher education institution, would only be able to pay its bills through April 30, unless some tax increases went into place.

The governor went so far as to say that LSU football was also in jeopardy, due to a threatened suspension of spring classes that would put college athletes’ eligibility in danger next year. He said the state would no longer be able to afford one of its most popular programs with middle class residents — the TOPS college scholarship — without tax hikes.

“Student athletes across the state would be ineligible to play next semester,” Edwards said. “I don’t say this to scare you. But I am going to be honest with you.”

The governor’s staff announced Thursday that the state’s current year budget deficit has reached $940 million — a price tag larger than the annual spending on LSU’s Baton Rouge campus and all of New Orleans public higher education institutions combined. The state must find a way to close the gaping budget gap by June 30, when it shuts the books on the fiscal year.

Once it resolves that budget crisis, Louisiana will be facing an immediate $2 billion shortfall in the next fiscal cycle, which starts July 1. Edwards is proposing cuts — but also large tax hikes — to deal with the financial crises both this year and next year.

Note that Edwards mentions LSU classes, not LSU football spending. An SI.com comment claims …

LSU football grosses about  $74.3 million, with about $25.8 million in expenses, netting about $48.5 million profit.  He’s using scare tactics to push his tax increase.

Well, of course Edwards is using scare tactics to push his tax increase. Louisiana is to the South what Illinois is to the Midwest in terms of corruption and bad government.

However, LSU football is bigger in Louisiana than any UW sport is in Wisconsin, and that’s in a state that has more than one Division I football team. If Edwards’ threat is carried out, Edwards runs the risk of duplicating the fate of Huey Long.