Goodbye Jax

So, not to drag this thread anymore off-topic, but after reading an article about a fan in San Fransisco dying by falling from the stadium, I was wondering if perhaps the ACC, or more likely, the SEC has looked into holding the title game there. Not because someone died - that's sad - but because this little gem is at the bottom of the article.

Authorities said it was the first death at Monster Park -- formerly known as Candlestick Park -- since two fans fell to the death in the 1980s.One of those fatalities was a man who attempted to ride a dumpster down the concourse and the second when a fan tumbled on a rainy day from the upper deck while booing then manager Frank Robinson following a San Francisco Giants loss to the Atlanta Braves.

Isn't this the level of crazy you get from an Alabama or VPI fan?
 
Clapper I was comparing to Jacksonville, which must be half the size of Tampa and Charlotte.

THWG, I hope you are correct. The absolute most important thing that we need is a tie in with the Outback Bowl. The easiest way to do that is to get the Big Ten to move over to the Gator Bowl, dropping the Big East.

The Big Ten would have an east and west coast bowl in Florida AND not get the snot kicked out of them by one conference each year.

The games would be better for all three conferences as there would be turnover in each.
 
I remain convinced that a "destination city" is irrelevant when talking about the ACCCG, because most people are flying (or driving) in late Friday night, watching the game on Saturday, and leaving early Sunday morning so they can be at work on Monday. So it doesn't IMO matter which city is nicer. (As long as the facilities are okay, which is why Orlando was ruled out)

However, I did notice on the website that tampa is offering several ticket options that are less expensive than what Jacksonville offered, so maybe they will have better luck getting locals to come out. The Jacksonville paper reported today that BC only sold 3500 of its tickets, and with fan support like that, you're going to need a lot of local interest if you hope to sell out.
 
GTMensLax&SoccerD1Soon! said:
Tampa - If you look at my post I never said Charlotte was the better vacationing/destination city. Because that would have been wrong.

What I said was that Charlotte is more accustomed to and better suited to host larger sporting events. Also, I stated that with the location of the stadium out of the downtown Tampa area, all walkability is lost. Whereas in Charlotte you can have your hotel be 5 minutes walk from the stadium and from a great bar area.

Last thing I want is bunch of drunk people driving all over town to go bar hopping after their team wins the football game.

And yeah you're right that the waters have been very swimmable there lately with all of the red tide thats been moving through.

Though long story short, Tampa has been chosen for the next two years and only time will tell what the better option is.
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Again, I will ask you the same question. How much time have you spent in Tampa?

Better suited to large sporting events -- are you joking? You do realize that Tampa Stadium is packed every Sunday, and even on Saturdays for the past year or so with USF -- not to mention we have an extremely successful bowl here. We may not have 100k rednecks watching a Nascar race three times a year...but to say that Charlotte is more equipped to handle an influx of people associated with an ACC champoinship game is ridiculous. IIRC, 20% of our economy is based on seasonal vacationers, and a football game is a blip on the radar screen....

FYI...Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater have a combined population of almost 4 million. Charlotte has less than 700k, and all of Mecklenberg county has about 825k. Mecklenberg county has 20k hotel rooms, and Hillsborough/Pinellas have almost 60k.

And FYI, there is no significant red tide in Tampa (in fact it never comes up the bay) nor on the adjacent Gulf beaches:

20071207_162615_18319.jpg


BTW, the area has been free of red tide for more than a year now, and typically December is not the time of the outbreaks.

All that said, you are right -- only time will tell if it is a good choice...Mike

p.s. If you come to next year's game, the first round at the Mons is on me. :)
 
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Have the Red Tide blooms been down? That was always a nice little Spring "treat". Personally, I'd go against Raymond James, if only because the whole pirate motif is a little too midtown for my tastes, if you catch my drift.

I would give Tampa a thumbs up over Charlotte in the ability to handle large quantities of people though. You have to remember that St. Pete is right there too. And it's not that small itself ( I heart St. Pete). There's a massive infrastructure in place, ready and able to support tourists. The only problem with Tampa is obviously that it's no where near most ACC schools. FSU, Miami and Tech are the only schools really within driving distance. Maybe Clem(P)son. But hey, who doesn't want a vacation at the beach? Even in December, the weather is still gorgeous.

TampaJacket said:
p.s. If you come to next year's game, the first round at the Mons is on me. :)
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Can we hit Nebraska Ave afterwards and troll for some of Tampa's "finest" escorts?
 
Allen,

I agree -- the motif is a bit over the top, but the facility is first rate.

As for Nebraska...Let's just say our strippers are much better than our whores and there's really not much of a difference in terms of, shall we say, services provided. ;)

Have fun...Mike
 
Not many want to go to Jax to begin with! As a whole, we(ACC) traveled poorly! Poor attendance the last 2 years! Also, What makes you think we'd travel to Tampa...other than for the Mans Venus!
 
CitySting said:
Not many want to go to Jax to begin with! As a whole, we(ACC) traveled poorly! Poor attendance the last 2 years! Also, What makes you think we'd travel to Tampa...other than for the Mans Venus!
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I remember back in the creamsicle days of the Bucs, when the entire press corp would cover these games, and it wasn't for the quality of football being played. Mons Venus is the Mecca of lap dances. Plus, you can always drive across to the Burg and hit that stretch US-19, where it's about 5 continuous miles of strip joints, gentleman clubs and smut shops.

The beaches in Pinellas County are absolutely gorgeous for those who prefer more family friendly activities. Wasn't Fort Desoto named the best beach in the country a few years back? Sunshine, seafood and snowbirds. What's not to love about the Tampa Bay area?

Not that any of this will really impact a football game in any way, but I'm just defending the home town.
 
tampa -

lord willing, ill be there with you next year big guy!...

Been to Tampa several times though. Honeymooned there about 8 months ago at a very large pink hotel (don ceasar?) dam expensive place (10 dollar mojitos!). in st pete. went to a great lil seafood joint called hurricanes pretty much every night. i know the area well enough to know that the only thing that Tampa adds that Jacksonville did not have is a couple of nice beaches and maybe a better bar scene. it's still forever away from everyone, and it is still in an area that is not ACC heavy.

Population figures by the way buddy... Tampa is running a solid 320,000 or so and Charlotte rings in at a whopping 540,000 or so. Now if you want to play the game of adding the populations of all of the surrounding cities then Tampa does weigh in at 2,697,731 and charlotte comes just short at about 2,191,604. (wikipedia) Not as near a significant difference you had tried to indicate earlier.

And in my opinion if a city can hadle 167000 rednecks it can probably handle anything. And it too handles about 73000 every sunday for its pro team. (BTW RL holds only 65000)

Look man I'm just playing devil's advocate here but all things are relatively equal. the differences are Tampa has better weather, and a better vacation draw, and Charlotte has more an ACC base with more central geographic location.

Shoot, i just had a great idea... why not daytona or charlotte (lowes) motor speedway! They both seat about 166000 I mean we could flat pack some people in there! Have the race and the game at the same time!

Take it easy buddy and keep praying for Tenuta to stay. :biggthumpup:
 
I don't think Jax was a bad site, just improper marketing. I believe any site for an ACC championship needs to market about 35,000 tickets to locals, saving about 15,000 per team. The SEC has huge fan bases and stadiums and Atlanta is a great location - it is not hard to get 30,000 per school to come to Atlanta on short notice. I think Jacksonville figured the Seminoles would be there every year and maybe Miami and did not work hard enough selling tickets to locals. I would urge Tampa and the ACC office to work on selling to the local market now. I know when the game comes to Charlotte, I would be willing to buy a ticket early and go see whoever makes it to the game even though that is a 180 mile drive.
 
The ideal location for this game would be Myrtle Beach. Unfortunately, the largest stadium in the area holds 8,500.
 
GTMensLax&SoccerD1Soon! said:
tampa -

Population figures by the way buddy... Tampa is running a solid 320,000 or so and Charlotte rings in at a whopping 540,000 or so. Now if you want to play the game of adding the populations of all of the surrounding cities then Tampa does weigh in at 2,697,731 and charlotte comes just short at about 2,191,604. (wikipedia) Not as near a significant difference you had tried to indicate earlier.
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The city of Tampa, itself, is small geographically and is skewing your statistics. For instance, Atlanta's population is 490k using your "city only" measurement. Take a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_Bay_Area

"Between 2000 and 2006, the combined Tampa Bay and Sarasota region (comprising eight counties) experienced a combined growth rate of 14.8 percent, growing from 3.4 million to 3.9 million and hitting the 4 million mark on April 1, 2007 in the continuous tampa urban area."

Trust me, having spent the last 25 years in Tampa, and the better part of the last year in Charlotte. The Tampa area is about twice the size of the Charlotte area.

The rest of your points are well taken...Mike

p.s. If it was pink, The Don Cesar is where you stayed. :)
 
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The real fact of the matter is that if GT was in the ACCCG and it was being played in Alaska, I would still figure out a way to get there because I am a true fan that loves my team. (Am following them to the blue turf!) But most fans in the ACC aren't like that. Thus, the real problem lies in the fact that the ACC's fanbase is not thorouoghly commmited to their teams as much as other conferences. This will hopefully start to change now that there seems to be more equity throughout the leaugue without one team just dominating the whole thing.
 
77GTFan said:
I don't think Jax was a bad site, just improper marketing. I believe any site for an ACC championship needs to market about 35,000 tickets to locals, saving about 15,000 per team. The SEC has huge fan bases and stadiums and Atlanta is a great location - it is not hard to get 30,000 per school to come to Atlanta on short notice. I think Jacksonville figured the Seminoles would be there every year and maybe Miami and did not work hard enough selling tickets to locals. I would urge Tampa and the ACC office to work on selling to the local market now. I know when the game comes to Charlotte, I would be willing to buy a ticket early and go see whoever makes it to the game even though that is a 180 mile drive.
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I actually think the Gator Bowl Association did a pretty good job selling tickets, given what they cost, and the fact that Jacksonville is more of an SEC town. VT and BC *combined* probably only sold around 10,000 tickets, so that means most of the people in the stands probably were locals. And even based on your optimistic assumptions above, 65,000 is still 10,000 short of a sellout. But I do agree with your basic premise that selling to the local market is key.
 
I still think Tampa is pretty idiotic. At least JAX could count on Clemson and Tech as well as the Florida teams. The travel time to Tampa will be prohibitive for all but the Florida teams.

My prediction is it will stay in Charlotte after the experiment with Tampa.
 
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