BC (Once Again) Blamed For ACC Championship Attendance Woes
by Brian @ BCI on May 27, 2010 7:56 AM EDT
in Boston College Baseball
14 comments
Jeff: As we well know, BC has been blamed in the past for attendance issues at the ACC Football Championship. The Eagles have also been pointed at for soft ticket sales at the ACC basketball tournaments since joining the league. Why BC gets mentioned and Miami doesn't I'll never know, but now BC is getting blamed for poor ticket sales at the ACC Tournament before the games even began:
"During the regular season, North Carolina averaged 1,401 at its home games in Chapel Hill.
In Chestnut Hill, meanwhile, Boston College drew more than 1,401 at home just twice: 1,432 for a Sunday doubleheader against Florida State and the season finale against Georgia Tech. The Eagles drew fewer than 700 in 16 of their 24 home games; 48 fans turned out at their game against nearby Northeastern on March 31."
Simply by qualifying and knocking out a North Carolina school from the running, BC is to blame once again. Will BC ever NOT be to blame for the ACC's ticket sales issues, regardless of sport?
Brian: Any time a city hosts for the first time and the local teams don’t qualify for the tournament or championship game, it’s all too easy for lazy sports writers to pick off the low hanging fruit.
Home attendance problems ...
Black sheep, Northern school ...
New to this whole college baseball thing ...
Only qualified for one other ACC Baseball Championship ...
Blame them!
If you really want someone to blame, blame North Carolina for waiting too late into the season to make a push and start winning games. Blame Georgia Tech for losing the regular season finale to BC, sending the Eagles instead of the Heels to the Championship. Hell, blame Virginia Tech, who, while relatively local, has about as much baseball history and prestige as BC does.
Or, if you are above simple finger-pointing, signaling out individual programs, maybe sports writers should take a look at the economics of the ACC Baseball Championship. Have you seen the prices for this Championship? $130 for a full 13 game package? That seems a little steep for a college baseball tournament. College baseball isn’t nearly as popular as ACC football or even the ACC Basketball tournament. Perhaps they should consider pricing Championship tickets more in line with the demand for tickets / the sport's popularity. Your thoughts?
Jeff: Even mentioning football and basketball when talking about the ACC Baseball Championship prices is comical. I think maybe $100 for a 13 game book and $10 for individual games might get a few more butts in seats, but it won't make a huge impact. Sites like Durham and Greensboro aren't going to draw huge crowds without Duke and/or UNC. It's that simple. If the Championship were held in South Carolina or Atlanta, Clemson fans would pack the stadium, but only for Clemson games. There is just not enough demand for college baseball for people to take off work and travel to weekday daytime games that are not for the title.
College baseball is a sport growing in attendance in Boston and at many schools but they still have a long way to go to regularly sell out conference tournament games featuring teams other than the local college.
Brian: The tournament organizers did everything they could to limit any damage BC could do to attendance by putting them in the noon game every day. Don’t think for a second an eighth seeded North Carolina team would have been scheduled to play in three straight noon games. You would have seen the Heels playing in the night game or late afternoon, possibly all three nights.
The Greensboro tournament organizers had to consider, however unlikely, that three of four local programs wouldn't make the tournament. College baseball is still very much a niche sport and like you said, only the diehard fans or parents are going to drop over $100 on tickets, not to mention travel and hotel costs to watch a week full of college baseball. Finally, even the fans of local teams from North and South Carolina are probably attending in decreased numbers this year given the economy. That was the reason cited for moving this year's Championship from Fenway Park to NewBridge Bank Park, so it's not like economic concerns weren't top of mind for league officials.
The irony in all this is that the attendance for the opener between BC and Virginia was actually pretty strong. The ACC announced a crowd of 3,280 fans for the opener, which would have been the fourth biggest crowd in last year's tournament.
1 recs |
14 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
Blame the real reason
The problem isn’t BC being in the tourney or “knocking UNC out.” The real problem is UNC sucked outloud during the bulk of the season, couldn’t find offense to go with our pitching and we screwed ourselves out of a tournament birth.
That in turned screwed greensboro out of the largest fanbase in the conference. Just like we saw in this season’s ACC basketball tourney that when UNC isn’t in it things get empty, this is UNC’s being bad.
As I told Brian, the ACC Title games in Florida weren’t so much BC’s fault as the league and Miami/FSU’s. Swofford and Co put the game in Florida expecting those schools to dominate as they had. Their plan backfired and we get a game with Wake, BC (small schools far and WAY far away).
If this tourney had been in Fenway the attendance is up. Not just because more BC fans (not typically a huge baseball base) go but because fans are locked in for the Boston experience and if their team is eliminated in the last weekend they’ve likely already got plane, hotels and tickets booked. It becomes a vacation for baseball not a watch our team win the title trip.
Stupid, stupid people is what this boils down to.
http://inthebleachers.net
by InTheBleachers on May 27, 2010 8:43 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Haha
UNC is far from the largest fanbase in the conference for anything other than basketball. Boshamer certainly isn’t the biggest park in the ACC either. The ACC screwed itself by putting yet another tournament in Greensboro and setting themselves up for the possibility of any of “the Big Four” missing out on the tourney.
by OrangeBritches on May 27, 2010 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions
"One of"
I left out “one of” as the UNC fanbase is larger than most in the ACC, especially when it comes to events in North Carolina. UNC doesn’t travel well BUT when in an event is in North Carolina the Heels are counted on to sell it out.
http://inthebleachers.net
by InTheBleachers on May 27, 2010 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Apparently UNC brought over 40 percent of the fans to last year’s Championship, so the Heels do appeal to travel well, for what it’s worth.
BC Interruption, SBN's Boston College Eagles blog
when we're good. thanks for the numbers all I knew was it was plenty of folks
http://inthebleachers.net
by InTheBleachers on May 27, 2010 8:58 PM EDT up reply actions
and which fanbase would have been the biggest should unc have been in the field?
Also, never said the Bosh was the biggest stadium.
http://inthebleachers.net
by InTheBleachers on May 27, 2010 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Big 12 is facing the same problem
because OSU and Nebraska (who travels well) failed to qualify. But no one’s blaming Mizzou and K-State for qualifying. Instead they’re blaming the venue and some are saying the event should be moved from OKC (which is a crock).
Attendance for these things comes down to locals going to the event. There has always been a strong marketing effort in OKC to sell tickets for the Big 12. This year they’ll be hurt big time by OSU’s large baseball fan base not being there, but for the most part attendance is fine because locals go to the game.
From what I’ve seen, the ACC makes no attempt to market its championships in the city in which it’s being hosted. Instead, they try to get all the fan bases to buy tickets in advance. That’s not going to happen. You have to get locals to embrace the event in order for it to work.
A bullhorn, a bottle of whiskey and a dream. GobblerCountry.com
by furrer4heisman on May 27, 2010 12:21 PM EDT reply actions
Greensboro
I think BC’s move to the ACC was one of the best things that could happen to pretty much all of our sports with the obvious exception of Hockey, which is not an ACC sport. But personally, I think part of the problem with all these championships is they are being held more and more often in the North Carolina backyard of the conference and many of the schools, which is understandable, but who wants to keep going back to mid-size cities in North Carolina? I’m happy to go to games at Duke or Chapel Hill, but places like Charlotte and Greensboro are perfectly fine cities, but not anywhere that you are going to use vacation or burn airline miles to get to. It’s like asking people to go to Providence for the weekend, nothing wrong with the place, but it’s not a major attraction.
Going to the Big East tourney at Madison Square Garden makes sense. If your team loses, you have all of New York City to make the trip memorable, but if your team loses in Greensboro, well, you’re in Greensboro, which is nice, but who would realistically go there for a getaway weekend or on vacation.
I think the football and basketball tourneys should be staged in places like Atlanta, Miami, DC, etc.
Whatever happened to the ACC Baseball Tourney at Fenway?
The irony is that this year’s Baseball Championship was originally scheduled for Fenway Park, but was moved to Greensboro. The ACC cited economic concerns for making the move.
I think you’re right though about making these Championships a destination.
I want to believe that hosting the tournament at Fenway Park would have brought more fans to this year’s Championship than having it in Greensboro. Boston becomes a destination, both fans and players get to experience Fenway Park, and fans of teams like UNC and Duke would have already been locked in to going to the event, having bought their tickets and booked hotels well before their teams’ didn’t make the tournament field.
BC Interruption, SBN's Boston College Eagles blog
Agree and Disagree
Greensboro sucks, period. I live in Charlotte and I hate being lumped in with them. You’re never going to win over the league by staging the basketball tournament in Miami, they tried Tampa and it was awful. The ACC basketball tournament needs to go from Charlotte to DC and maybe, maybe, Atlanta although playing in the Georgia Dome sucks. Its a horrible basketball venue.
As for the ACC title game I disagree whole heartedly. Charlotte is the best place for the football game. Its in the middle of the league with 8 schools within about 4 hours driving distance, MD and FSU closer to 7-8 and the obviously BC and Miami further. There’s no shot the ACC game goes to Atlanta, the SEC owns that town it wouldn’t get a sniff. As for playing the game in DC I think the league isn’t going to run that risk. Putting the game in DC which is 4 hrs from Blacksburg and the Triangle would be the reverse of the Florida ACCCG if Miami/FSU make it in the coming years.
From what I understand the game is going to stay in Charlotte as long as the league pulls this game off well.
http://inthebleachers.net
by InTheBleachers on May 27, 2010 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions
put baseball where it will draw
its not BC’s fault particularly but if you invite a small private college 1000 miles away to join your conference this is the risk you take in all sports. The biggest problem here is continued gross mismanagement of the conference by it’s leaders. College baseball does not have such huge appeal that you can just plop down the tournament anywhere you want and have it draw well. This includes Salem to appease the UVA supporters or Durham or Greensboro since the ACC decision makers assume that these cities are the center of the universe. The baseball tourney drew by far its best in Greenville and Jacksonville and since these were proven successes, should allow for regular hosting.
IF the ACC were actually forward thinking, they should try the Gwinnett stadium in suburban Atlanta, the new home to the Braves AAA affiliate. Its the only sport that the SEC has not locked down in Atlanta and with several big time baseball programs nearby (FSU and Clemson are the only ACC teams regularly in the nations top 20 in attendance, and they’re actually both in the top 10) would draw really well.
how come with BC it's always distance?
Miami is actually farther by air and car to its nearest ACC competitor (FSU) than BC is to Maryland. Miami is also further by a bit than BC to Durham, the epicenter of the league. How come no one bellyaches about Miami and distance? South Florida is a very northern type region, so it’s not like Miami is kindred spirit to GaTech or FSU. Tired refrain, BC’s distance
Three (of 12) pool play games drew less fans than games with BC involved:
Florida State vs. Virginia (3,167)
Miami vs. Florida State (3,057)
Virginia Tech vs. Georgia Tech (3,027)
Yet still our fault.
BC Interruption, SBN's Boston College Eagles blog
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
