Agreed but the assignment of the teams is after the sites are chosen and, if this is a fair tournament, the teams should not have an unfair advantage based on location where it can be avoided and, in this case, it could have.
Why, then, do they make sure to assign an officiating crew who is not from the same conference as either team?
I hate neutral site games. Games should be played at the home stadium of the higher ranked team.
Part of the team assignments to a particular location has to do with travel distance for the fans who’ll wish to attend. And they do seem to pick domed stadiums, or warm climates, for these games that will be played in the dead of winter.
Would it have really made more sense to send Kansas and Michigan to Atlanta and Georgia and OSU to Phoenix? And the advantage is not that great because equal numbers of tickets are made available to each school and these major programs have many fans who’ll make the trip.
Last year Alabama and Georgia played in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. If Michigan or ND could have made it to the final game, they’d have had the same “advantage”.
All this location issue is greatly exaggerated. And SEC teams have played in final four games far from home.