good riddance ACC
So the ACC football championship game has been played in J'ville for the last three years. Attendance the first year was a success, because Florida State played in the game and FSU fans supported it. Last year the teams were Wake Forest and Georgia Tech..and neither fan base showed up, not that Wake has a huge one to begin with. This year Boston College and Virginia Tech played and Boston College brought a rousing crowd of...somewhere between 3000 and 3500 fans. The stadium had a crowd of about 45,000.
That wasn't enough to satisfy the ACC though, which apparently has a much higher expectation of the interest its championship game should generate. They saw the embarrassingly unfilled stadium on television and said...sorry J'ville. Not good enough. After two years of losing a lot of money on the deal, J'ville gladly washed their hands of the whole mess. So now we have the next move...literally. The ACC struck a deal to move the game. For the next two years, it's going to Tampa and then the two after that it goes to Charlotte.
The move to Tampa makes absolutely no sense to me. ACC fans are passionate about basketball, but football...no. Oh, they can say they are, but when it comes to putting their gas/hotel money where their heart and/or mouth is...not so much. J'ville, with a decent FSU fan base within say a 4 hour drive, proved the ACC mentality is....I'll go if my team is in it, but just to watch my conference championship...it'll be on TV. Nobody cares enough to fill a stadium, and moving the game to Tampa, which is even farther from any ACC school outside Miami, makes no sense. They made one move that could sell more tickets in Tampa. The cheapest ticket in J'ville was $60. The cheapest one in Tampa will be $25. The most expensive will be $65. At least they recognize they overpriced their product.
Charlotte makes a little more sense. Several ACC schools are a day trip from Charlotte, and if North Carolina, NC State, maybe Clemson are in it, they could maybe sell...50,000 tickets. Please don't laugh. It could happen. Boston College still won't travel. Miami won't. FSU, Duke or Wake might. Clemson and Virgina Tech (and maybe FSU) are about that game's only hope of a sellout. When the SEC plays its championship in Atlanta, people from here that are huge Gator fans go....even when Florida isn't playing...because they have a passion for SEC football. I'm not one of them, but I see it happen. ACC football fans don't do that. Nobody from the Carolinas was making the trip to see Boston College play Virginia Tech in Jacksonville. Now if Duke and North Carolina were playing basketball in Jacksonville (not that I can fabricate a decent reason for that to happen), the whole state of North Carolina would be jammin' I-95 to get here.
Tell ya what. If that game goes to Charlotte and the crowd still looks like it did in J'ville, the ACC it going to have to look in the mirror and own up to the wake up call. Your fans just don't give a shit about your football program...or not enough to go pay to watch your championship game.
Call this sour grapes if you like, but I was tired of the organizers pleading with the J'ville population to buy tickets to something they really didn't care about, just to keep that thing they didn't care about in Jacksonville. The ACC commissioner and his staff seem to think this game is a huge draw, and over the last three years it's been proven otherwise. Maybe, in Charlotte, it can be. For their sake, I hope so.
That wasn't enough to satisfy the ACC though, which apparently has a much higher expectation of the interest its championship game should generate. They saw the embarrassingly unfilled stadium on television and said...sorry J'ville. Not good enough. After two years of losing a lot of money on the deal, J'ville gladly washed their hands of the whole mess. So now we have the next move...literally. The ACC struck a deal to move the game. For the next two years, it's going to Tampa and then the two after that it goes to Charlotte.
The move to Tampa makes absolutely no sense to me. ACC fans are passionate about basketball, but football...no. Oh, they can say they are, but when it comes to putting their gas/hotel money where their heart and/or mouth is...not so much. J'ville, with a decent FSU fan base within say a 4 hour drive, proved the ACC mentality is....I'll go if my team is in it, but just to watch my conference championship...it'll be on TV. Nobody cares enough to fill a stadium, and moving the game to Tampa, which is even farther from any ACC school outside Miami, makes no sense. They made one move that could sell more tickets in Tampa. The cheapest ticket in J'ville was $60. The cheapest one in Tampa will be $25. The most expensive will be $65. At least they recognize they overpriced their product.
Charlotte makes a little more sense. Several ACC schools are a day trip from Charlotte, and if North Carolina, NC State, maybe Clemson are in it, they could maybe sell...50,000 tickets. Please don't laugh. It could happen. Boston College still won't travel. Miami won't. FSU, Duke or Wake might. Clemson and Virgina Tech (and maybe FSU) are about that game's only hope of a sellout. When the SEC plays its championship in Atlanta, people from here that are huge Gator fans go....even when Florida isn't playing...because they have a passion for SEC football. I'm not one of them, but I see it happen. ACC football fans don't do that. Nobody from the Carolinas was making the trip to see Boston College play Virginia Tech in Jacksonville. Now if Duke and North Carolina were playing basketball in Jacksonville (not that I can fabricate a decent reason for that to happen), the whole state of North Carolina would be jammin' I-95 to get here.
Tell ya what. If that game goes to Charlotte and the crowd still looks like it did in J'ville, the ACC it going to have to look in the mirror and own up to the wake up call. Your fans just don't give a shit about your football program...or not enough to go pay to watch your championship game.
Call this sour grapes if you like, but I was tired of the organizers pleading with the J'ville population to buy tickets to something they really didn't care about, just to keep that thing they didn't care about in Jacksonville. The ACC commissioner and his staff seem to think this game is a huge draw, and over the last three years it's been proven otherwise. Maybe, in Charlotte, it can be. For their sake, I hope so.
Labels: Sports
John put this out here at 7:52 AM
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