Post by ncbonnie on May 30, 2009 16:14:10 GMT -5
49ers football sales test my optimism
By Tom Sorensen
tsorensen@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, May. 30, 2009
More Information
UNCC football delay looking likely
Fans of the Charlotte 49ers were excited about having their own football team and proved it by pledging to buy 5,600 Football Seat Licenses.
They began to pledge during November and the school began to accept their money in February. Nobody was asked to pay the full price; they were asked to pay only a quarter of what they owed.
So far, only 1,693 have.
We all know pledging money and paying money is not the same. I had friends who regularly pledged to PTL (they wouldn't listen to me) and Jim and Tammy never saw a dollar.
Fans have told UNC Charlotte they won't pay because: they have not been guaranteed seats on the 50-yard line; they never planned to honor their commitments, they simply wanted to help the campaign; they have less money than they did six months ago.
“Our timing is not great on this,” athletics director Judy Rose says. “But it doesn't mean we can't overcome it.”
Rose says this Friday during a break in a UNC Charlotte board meeting in which some trustees appear to be paid by the word.
Rose is right. Charlotte's timing is terrible. But when was the right time? When will it be?
I've been a proponent since the football quest was nothing more than a whisper on a message board. If you were to list in alphabetical order the writers and broadcasters who believed the 49ers could do this, you could skip straight to S and stop.
But I am less optimistic than I have ever been. If the college system's board of governors decides late this year to raise tuition, it also could decide to prohibit raising student fees. This would delay and perhaps devastate the campaign.
Yet I don't expect the issue to be decided by outsiders. If fans commit, the 49ers will have football.
What if fans don't?
“I think the board (of trustees) would be wise to reconsider the football decision,” says chancellor Philip Dubois.
He adds: “The entire financial plan is dependent on it.”
Thousands of detractors, not all of them graduates of North Carolina, consider UNC Charlotte's football quest comical. You're the 49ers; go play basketball against St. Bonaventure or something.
But I'm telling you, UNC Charlotte needs football. And if it doesn't commit now, it will be years, and maybe decades, before it will try again.
“We will never be perceived as the great university we are and can be without football,” Rose says.
So add football.
If every fan of the 49ers who has ever felt slighted by The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte sports radio talk shows, the ACC, Chapel Hill, Stephen Curry, or because going green has nothing to do with school colors, were to make and honor a pledge, you know what UNC Charlotte could do?
It could build a gleaming stadium on campus, fill it with amenities that make Bank of America Stadium look dowdy and hire Bill Parcels as coach.
The real push to sell tickets will not begin until July. Maybe fans will become inspired. If not, if this is all pretend, they don't deserve a football team.
St. Bonaventure awaits.
By Tom Sorensen
tsorensen@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, May. 30, 2009
More Information
UNCC football delay looking likely
Fans of the Charlotte 49ers were excited about having their own football team and proved it by pledging to buy 5,600 Football Seat Licenses.
They began to pledge during November and the school began to accept their money in February. Nobody was asked to pay the full price; they were asked to pay only a quarter of what they owed.
So far, only 1,693 have.
We all know pledging money and paying money is not the same. I had friends who regularly pledged to PTL (they wouldn't listen to me) and Jim and Tammy never saw a dollar.
Fans have told UNC Charlotte they won't pay because: they have not been guaranteed seats on the 50-yard line; they never planned to honor their commitments, they simply wanted to help the campaign; they have less money than they did six months ago.
“Our timing is not great on this,” athletics director Judy Rose says. “But it doesn't mean we can't overcome it.”
Rose says this Friday during a break in a UNC Charlotte board meeting in which some trustees appear to be paid by the word.
Rose is right. Charlotte's timing is terrible. But when was the right time? When will it be?
I've been a proponent since the football quest was nothing more than a whisper on a message board. If you were to list in alphabetical order the writers and broadcasters who believed the 49ers could do this, you could skip straight to S and stop.
But I am less optimistic than I have ever been. If the college system's board of governors decides late this year to raise tuition, it also could decide to prohibit raising student fees. This would delay and perhaps devastate the campaign.
Yet I don't expect the issue to be decided by outsiders. If fans commit, the 49ers will have football.
What if fans don't?
“I think the board (of trustees) would be wise to reconsider the football decision,” says chancellor Philip Dubois.
He adds: “The entire financial plan is dependent on it.”
Thousands of detractors, not all of them graduates of North Carolina, consider UNC Charlotte's football quest comical. You're the 49ers; go play basketball against St. Bonaventure or something.
But I'm telling you, UNC Charlotte needs football. And if it doesn't commit now, it will be years, and maybe decades, before it will try again.
“We will never be perceived as the great university we are and can be without football,” Rose says.
So add football.
If every fan of the 49ers who has ever felt slighted by The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte sports radio talk shows, the ACC, Chapel Hill, Stephen Curry, or because going green has nothing to do with school colors, were to make and honor a pledge, you know what UNC Charlotte could do?
It could build a gleaming stadium on campus, fill it with amenities that make Bank of America Stadium look dowdy and hire Bill Parcels as coach.
The real push to sell tickets will not begin until July. Maybe fans will become inspired. If not, if this is all pretend, they don't deserve a football team.
St. Bonaventure awaits.
