BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Except that 8-8 makes the playoffs in the NFL, and 7-5 will make it into the playoffs in CFP. Kicking out a Vandy to bring in an NC State brings in more viewers.

 

I'll bet more like $25 for the very minimum.

 

I think one of the draws for watching the games at home is that you can drink your cheap beer and eat your cheap food, do things around the house during commercials, not have to pay to attend, not deal with drunk idiot fans, watch in your underwear, sink into your comfortable recliner or couch, get your home-toilet advantage, channel-surf when things get boring, etc.

The theater experience removes all of that. If I'm going to leave the comforts of home to watch a game, I'll go all the way and go to the game.

 

If I go out to watch, it's at one of my two regular haunts where I'll generally get hooked up with some free bevvies along the way. Might catch the first half of the Hokies out on Saturday since it's a late game and watch the second half at home, because I'm too goddamn old to be out at 11 p.m. on a Saturday. Oof.

 

Ticket prices are insane. Even if you go, hotels and minimum stays hit everyone hard. What if your alumni association could get you into a theater setting with a cinema-sized screen where you wouldn't have to fight long bar lines to get a beer (at theaters that serve) and still watch with other State U fans? My State U alumni group for years has done game watches at a trendy bar with four floors where the noise carries and if there's a night game, it's a $10 cover. If you're lucky, the audio is loud enough to follow what's happening. I went to a couple of those watches years ago, but I'm too old for that shit now. I'd pay $10 to sit in a theater and watch it with 100 other folks for the communal experience and not have to deal with 22-year-olds at the bar buying for their underage friends.

 

My first thought about this was that theater owners would pitch it to alumni groups. A big city like Boston has alumni from every school you can imagine. There's a house not a half-mile from the Lexington Green that flies a huge Alabama flag every autumn Saturday.

 

Other than a couple of games when our kids were at university, we didn't go for the reasons above. Crowds, hassles, exorbitant ticket and concessions prices, parking nightmares, waiting 60-90 minutes for dining, and in September the crazy heat. At home there's none of that, bathroom lines aren't long, and if the game sucks I can watch or go do something else. I used to enjoy going to a game and now it's pretty close to a f'king nightmare.

I can't imagine being in a theatre with opposing fans and it not turning into a nightmare. People getting up, walking around, drunks, climbing over people in the rows, fights, little to no security and more. Tickets (entry) might start at $25 for front-row sore neck seats but I'd bet they'll be more along the lines of $40 per for the better ones.

 

That's exactly what it sounds like to me, too. I will go to alumni club events to watch sports when traveling and it's typically in a bar or some other rented facility. I could see those events shifting to movie theaters (especially if they have an alcohol permit) for some of the larger gatherings. I would prefer that to some of the places where I have attended alumni events.

 

Some of those newer theatre seats slap. Heated, full reclining, lots of padding for lardasses like me. I could be tempted.

 

I had a flashback to when major fights, like Ali-Frazier, were shown on closed-circuit TV, before pay-per-view became feasable.

 

Uh, no. I'll go to Carter-Finley or to Wallace Wade – think I'm kidding? ... Duke probably still sells $10 tickets to most games except against Chapel Hill and maybe some schools that travel well like Clemson – or the site itself before doing that.

Or ... a road game far away? Why did I pay for my cable again?

 

If I'm a theater I'd love it - figure concessions will do very well since there a actual game breaks. Still - I like watching it with a crowd, talking crap, high-fiving strangers, don't know if it can replicate the sports bar experience.