claver2010 {l Wrote}:Back to the actual game, the ecu fans are incredibly mad and it’s times like these i wish there were still invasions.
They raised $200k to cover costs which included buying the players a bowl ring
ECU fans aren't the only ones who are mad. I was talking this weekend with one of the Military Bowl organizers who was involved in picking up the pieces. They are beside themselves over what happened and they fully blame BC and BC alone.
To be clear, they think very highly of Hafley, the rest of the coaching staff, and of the players themselves. FWIW they observed that the players seem to think the world of Hafley and the coaches. But the bowl organizers are
furious that BC would test everyone regularly, rather than just those who exhibit symptoms. They say that inflated the count of positives such that BC couldn't field a team, which they saw as a real kick in the teeth as BC crowed about how they had avoided Covid. Based on the conversation I had, it seems they're not shy about telling their story to their peers.
What really galls them is that they weren't even supposed to get BC. They were supposed to line up one of the Virginia schools to play ECU, and with cross-border and cross-school relationships they expected strong ticket sales as a result. But they ended up stuck with BC because one of those schools wanted a different bowl and it caused a bunch of dominoes to fall that "stuck" the Military Bowl with BC.
Then BC evidently sold something like 5% of the tickets that ECU sold. BC was going to buy up the unsold tickets of course, but the empty seats would have looked terrible on television. Then BC "overtested" and couldn't field a team, eliminating TV money and endangering the bowl's capacity to even get sponsors to put on the game.
So the story is out there that if you take BC, they won't just fail to send fans. Rather, they may do something stupid to kill your bowl and leave you holding the bag. Maybe Fenway will take the risk because they could sell tickets to the locals, but BC doesn't want a home game for a bowl. Regardless, even as other bowls got canceled for Covid outbreaks, we in particular seem to be seen as responsible and bad business partners due to the "overtesting".