Fans want to watch football. Trump and Walz will also be there.

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For college football fans, they are the temples of the sport: Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama and the Big House at the University of Michigan.

But for the presidential campaign, they're on the soundstage this Saturday: former President Donald J. Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, are making stops to try to prove their everyman mettle in any battleground state. Voters who may be in the stands or watching from a distance.

“College football in the fall is the only place where you can find 100,000 potential voters in one place and you don't have to pay for it,” said Angie Horn, a Republican strategist and Alabama football loyalist.

“The amount of coverage and publicity and crowds like that would cost millions to pay for,” he added. “They're getting it for free – and you get to see a really good football game.”

Mr. Trump in Tuscaloosa, Ala. going, where the second-ranked Georgia Bulldogs, the gridiron pride of neighboring swing states, will meet the No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide. Mr. Walz is scheduled to visit Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, where the 12th-ranked Michigan Wolverines, last season's national champions, host the Minnesota Golden Gophers, trolling for votes in one of the nation's biggest battlegrounds.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Walz cannot reliably predict that they will be Saturday's star attractions as the campaigns attack a sport that has a cultural core and long-standing animosity and partisan obsessions that have overtaken Washington. But their visits are designed to invite a crush of local news coverage and social media posts and, their allies hope, cameos during national broadcasts that will soak up audiences in Michigan and Georgia.

Less than a year after Alabama and Georgia met in the Southeastern Conference championship game, a duel that averaged nearly 17.5 million viewers, ABC will air their latest bout in prime time. And while it's virtually certain that the Michigan game will draw fewer viewers than the matchup in Tuscaloosa — the Wolverines already have one loss, and Minnesota isn't exactly a ratings engine — Fox competes for its premier slot in the Big Ten Conference, which has schools in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

But with Alabama, Georgia and Michigan regularly drawing viewers regardless of their sports allegiances, any televised glimpse of Mr. Trump or Mr. Walz will be noticed on the battlefield and beyond.

“I don't think it's a specific campaign stop that wins you an election in isolation, but I believe it has a compounding effect to reinforce that you're an everyday person,” said Walt Maddox, the Democratic mayor of Tuscaloosa. Nominee for Governor of Alabama in 2018.

“There are hundreds of thousands of votes that are going to be combined that are going to decide this election,” Mr. Maddox said. “Any time you look authentic, it definitely helps you with that undecided voter.”

To that end, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Walz have turned to football.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign often referred to Mr. Walz as “Coach” as the defensive coordinator of a high school team that won a Minnesota state championship. More than a dozen of his former players took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in August. (Unfortunately for Mr. Walz, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, whom he respected before going to Minnesota, aren't scheduled to play a battleground game before Election Day. But Penn State will visit Wisconsin on Oct. 26 — a great tailgating opportunity for both sides to mix with swing-state politics.)

“In the Midwest and Big Ten country, we love our football, we love our football coaches,” said Phil Skaggs, a Democratic member of the Michigan House. Brown Jug competition that goes back to 1892. “The Midwest, and Michigan in particular, sees an authentic, regular Midwesterner in his natural habitat.”

Mr Trump played football as a boy but has no coaching pedigree. But he owned the New Jersey Generals before the first iteration of the United States Football League. Since he began his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has made sports a recurring part of his public image, especially if a contest involves a state whose political fortunes are at stake.

Although he made a World Series appearance in Atlanta in 2021, he was much more of a force around college football.

“Our politics is tribal and college football is tribal,” said Brian Robinson, a Georgia Republican consultant. “It's a signal to Georgia voters: 'I'm one of you. I like the same, simple American pleasures you do.'

As president, Mr. Trump canceled two college football championship games, including the Alabama-Georgia meeting in Atlanta. He traveled to Tuscaloosa in 2019 for Alabama's game against Louisiana State. Last year, as the Republican primaries neared, he went to rival showdowns in Iowa and South Carolina.

And in 2020, as the pandemic threatened to derail the football season, Mr. Trump called on Big Ten commissioners to offer federal aid for virus testing. The League balked, wary that it would become embroiled in election-year politics. That decision made no difference: After the league played without the White House's proposed resources, Mr. Trump claimed during a debate that he had “brought back Big Ten football.”

The Harris campaign plans to tweet Mr. Trump about his reluctance to debate again during his visit to Alabama. On Saturday, the campaign said it would have a plane over Bryant-Denny Stadium flying a banner reading, “Trump punting in 2nd debate.”

Ms. Harris has not made football nearly as much a part of her brand as Mr. Walz, but her campaign announced Saturday that it plans a significant presence at homecoming events at historically black colleges and universities in swing states.

Ms. Harris herself visited Atlanta last year for a game where her alma mater, Howard, took on Florida A&M. Most recently, in a game with North Carolina, Mr. Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, attended when East Carolina played Appalachian State.

Jeers are a known risk when a politician attends a sporting event. Ms. Horne, however, argued that the biggest danger for Mr. Trump and Mr. Walz may be the threat of favoring one party. Tie color, he said, may matter. So maybe it's time for a smile or a thumbs up.

“If Alabama beats Georgia, are you happy?” Mrs. Horn said. “This weekend in the South, there's a bigger divisive factor than Democrats vs. Republicans: It's Alabama vs. Georgia, and you don't want to take sides.”

Mr. Walz, who had been planning his trip to Ann Arbor before picking Ms. Harris in August, may have a more complicated choice to make when it comes to giving his new gig: choosing from imagined neutrality; A flagship school in a state desperately needed to win him and Mrs. Harris over; Or the largest university in the state where he is the governor.

In Tuscaloosa, a short drive from a state that Mr. Trump is desperate to carry, Mr. Maddox acknowledged that the former president might risk the wrath of restive Alabama.

“I think Alabama would vote for Donald Trump even if he wore a Georgia sweater,” the Democratic mayor laughed. “And, knowing how close this election is, he might want to attend the Georgia section.”

Maya is the king Contribution reporting.