Good To See The ACC Championship Was A Big Draw | NCAAF | Boston Coll. Eagles

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This is a few days old and likely posted somewhere else but I thought I'd post anyway. Check out this screen shot taken during the ACC Championship played in sunny Jacksonville. As you can see by the score, it wasn't pre-game warm-ups nor was it the waning moments of a blow.

Where the hell are all the fans? Particularly Boston College? I know Jacksonville isn't all that close, but it was easier to find Waldo than it is to spot a BC fan in this picture.

Being an addicted message board peruser, it's become apparent that Eagles fans are beside themselves with being passed over by the top ACC bowl games. I feel ashamed for not being aware of their poor travel history, but I guess it's easy to see what they fell to the Champs Sports Bowl now. Fair? Not at all, but at least it's somewhat in their hands. Go see your team play, they're actually pretty good.

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12/4/07

5	Pat wrote: Poor travel history? How many consecutive bowl games have the Eagles won? I can't wait for them to destroy your precious Spartans. Too bad no one will be there to see it.

12/3/07

Jubanator14

0	They should have made everyone sit on the side of the stadium that the camera showed. That way when they showed the crowd, it would look like a full and big crowd.

12/4/07

tpowell25

0	So, CF. Are you going to show the Boston College fans how it's done and head down to Orlando?

12/4/07

Pat

0	Poor travel history? How many consecutive bowl games have the Eagles won? I can't wait for them to destroy your precious Spartans.

12/4/07

5	Pat wrote: Poor travel history? How many consecutive bowl games have the Eagles won? I can't wait for them to destroy your precious Spartans. Too bad no one will be there to see it.

12/4/07

Honestly, I really think this is why there are few (if that) major college football powers in metropolitan areas. There's simply too much competition between the professional teams and college teams.

Help me out on this one.....other than BC and USC (which has no NFL team to compete with right now), are there any traditional college football powers in major cities? Or how about within 40 miles of a major metropolitan city?

12/4/07

3	Pat wrote: Poor travel history? How many consecutive bowl games have the Eagles won? I can't wait for them to destroy your precious Spartans. That's why they have such a good bowl record. Get passed over and go to weaker bowl games. Sort of the opposite effect of Notre Dame. And yes, Pat, they do have a poor travel history. Which has nothing to do with how good I think they are.

12/4/07

IlliniBob72

0	Pat wrote: Poor travel history? How many consecutive bowl games have the Eagles won? I can't wait for them to destroy your precious Spartans. Travel history refers to how the fans travel for the games, not how the team plays on the road. I'm guessing that may be the confusion based on your response.

12/4/07

IlliniBob72

Ryan wrote:

Honestly, I really think this is why there are few (if that) major college football powers in metropolitan areas. There's simply too much competition between the professional teams and college teams.

Well, outside of the last few seasons, there's Miami, the U. Ann Arbor isn't far from Detroit. Columbus has over a million people, but acts smaller, I'm guessing.

12/4/07

0	Ryan wrote: Too bad no one will be there to see it. Spartans will fill the house. Allotment is nearly sold out already. Now whether they will be a cheering is another story.

12/4/07

0	IlliniBob72 wrote: Well, outside of the last few seasons, there's Miami, the U. Ann Arbor isn't far from Detroit. Columbus has over a million people, but acts smaller, I'm guessing. I forgot about Miami. Define "isn't far".

12/4/07

0	Ryan wrote: I forgot about Miami. Define "isn't far". Ann Arbor is about 30 minutes from Detroit. All Detroit papers define Michigan as the home team. I think what's different about that city, though, is unlike some other big cities there isn't anything else to do and no one lives in the city center.

12/4/07

MCnine

0	part of the problem is that Jacksonville is a terrible site to have the game. People there don't support their own team (Jaguars) so you you get many other fans other then those who travel with the team...

12/4/07

IlliniBob72

MCnine wrote:

part of the problem is that Jacksonville is a terrible site to have the game. People there don't support their own team (Jaguars) so you you get many other fans other then those who travel with the team...

You are right. Even if neither team brought one fan, locals should at least fill half the place. Lord, two of the best teams in the country and that is all that came out? Plenty of blame for that one.

12/4/07

0	I live here in Jacksonville and here's an interesting note to add: They gave out free tickets to all school board employees that wanted them (up to 4 each). There were a lot of us (teachers) there, so this could have looked a lot worse.

12/4/07

tpowell25

0	saylorgator wrote: I live here in Jacksonville and here's an interesting note to add: They gave out free tickets to all school board employees that wanted them (up to 4 each). There were a lot of us (teachers) there, so this could have looked a lot worse. That's pretty cool. And at the same time, pretty sad.

12/4/07

IlliniBob72 wrote:

A big part of the problem is that this is totally an SEC town. Another thing is this is a pretty blue collar town and other than the free tickets they gave out to teachers, the tickets were very expensive to see a game you don't have a team in (if Miami or FSU were playing there'd have been a lot more). The cheapest seats available before the game were $70 and went up to about $125, so to take my family of 4 it would have been at least $280 and that doesn't include parking, drinks, food, etc.

As for the Jaguars, that's really sad that a team doing pretty well can't sell out, but it's really the same problem. Usually the tickets that are left are club level seats that are about $250 a piece - once in a while you can find a seat in the absolute top row of the stadium (I watched the jags/colts game from up there and it is very very high).

12/4/07

MCnine

saylorgator wrote:

so your saying everybody from the cocktail party comes from Gainesville or Athens? No offense to you at all, but it still makes me sick that Jacksonville was awarded that franchise instead of Baltimore. I went there with the Ravens in '01 and there were entire sections covered by tarps. And the Jaguars usually put a pretty good product on the field so there should be way more interest...

12/4/07

Nick S

Not trying to make excuses but 1. Jacksonville is a very expensive and it is very hard to get to and 2. the Jacksonville area is an SEC area so the locals don't really support an ACC Title game. Not an excuse but those are the reasons some people didn't go.
Also, BC sold 9 thousand of their 10 thousand tickets allotted to them and VT didn't sell all of theirs either.

P.S. Destinations like Idaho, Detroit, and Nashville aren't ideal places to travel to see a football game around Christmas. I will tell you I already got my tickets for Orlando (A much better destination then those other places).

12/4/07

MCnine wrote:

No, I said this is an SEC town, it's crawling with Gators and Dawgs.

As far as the covered up seats, they made the stadium larger than just about every NFL stadium to be able to keep the cocktail party. Even with the covered up seats it is still one of the biggest stadiums and it is (i believe) the 2nd smallest market. I'm not saying Jag fans are the best but there are some understandable reasons for them not selling out (one big problem is everything between the 20s being club seats too).

12/5/07

saylorgator wrote:

No, I said this is an SEC town, it's crawling with Gators and Dawgs.

That's definitely an odd choice by the ACC for location. That'd be like the Big Ten having a title game in Nashville. How about DC or Charlotte as the host? Are there any plans to move the game?

12/5/07

Nick S

0	CriticalFanatic wrote: That's definitely an odd choice by the ACC for location. That'd be like the Big Ten having a title game in Nashville. How about DC or Charlotte as the host? Are there any plans to move the game? Yes, if the game this year didn't sell out (which it clearly didn't) they are going to rotate it through, Jacksonville, Charlottle, DC.

12/5/07

MCnine

0	the acc has always favored the south for championships like in men's hoops, the tourney has been in Charlotte or Greensboro 90% of the time. I think FedEX or M&T Bank stadium would be good locations because you'd cut the acc map in half and there would be plenty of non student/alumni interest (like Army/Navy for instance). But I can also see the lure of having it in a warm climate...

12/5/07

(Edited by saylorgator)

I was listening to one of our sports talk shows this morning and they had on the Gator bowl committee director (the Gator bowl committee is in charge of the acc champ. too). He had some interesting stats, one of which was that the residents of jacksonville bought 25,000 seats for the game, more than both schools combined. Second he felt that a major problem is just the acc not promoting the game well (some of this is passing the buck too i'm sure). Lastly, while Jacksonville is not withdrawing their bid, the will not agree to host it again if the ACC does not agree to certain "terms" with the city. I took this to mean that the city and/or gator bowl lost a bunch of money. Doesn't sound like he would be sad to see it go. Charlotte seems to make more sense to me, at least geographically.

The photo also, by the way, is deceptive. We left in the middle of the 3rd because we had other plans (hey, the tickets were free) as apparently so did a lot of others. The stadium when we left had the lower bowl about 2/3 full. Both club zones were fairly full, maybe they'd gone inside - it was kind of chilly (it's Florida, we have a different idea of what chilly is).

12/8/07

$Big BANK Bob$

2	for BC to end up playing the Spartans shows just how far they have fallen since being ranked #2. The Spartans are mediocre at best

12/8/07

$Big BANK Bob$

0	Did they really need a nuetral field for this?

12/9/07

Nick S

1	$Big BANK Bob$ wrote: for BC to end up playing the Spartans shows just how far they have fallen since being ranked #2. The Spartans are mediocre at best Its not that BC has fallen, its just their fans suck. That is the reason the get sent to the toilet bowl every year (even with a 10 and 3 record). Bad Rep=Worse Bowl=Less Ticket Sales=Less Fans

12/12/07