Remember last year’s national championship ticket debacle? The one in which the Greater Chattanooga Sports Commission basically did all in its power to sully a Appalachian fan’s weekend? In short:
- In the weeks prior to the game, it gave away tickets like rice at a wedding, selling them as low as $5 and showering game sponsors with all the good seats
- Once the App State-UMass contest was set, only endzone facing seats were available
- App State didn’t get anywhere near the number of tickets it asked be allocated its way.
Well, just in case you’re one of those eager beaver Mountaineers looking ahead to what mightmaybehopefullycould come to pass – ie. a third trip to Chattanooga – be forewarned. Area hotels appear to be already booked due to some sort of convention. A friend – one of those eager beavers – phoned me today with the news. It would appear that the day of the National Championship coincides with a month-high six scheduled events at the Chattanooga Convention Center. They include:
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Urban League
Stores On Line
US District Courts
EW Professional Career Training
Steven D. Bell Company
Include the (fingers crossed) hotels already set aside for the eventual two teams and, well, good luck finding shelter. It may not be a bad idea for App fans, Montana fans, Fordham fans, etc. to play eager beaver today and see if you can find a room. Just in case ….
Oh, and tickets to The game are on sale. Just in case ….
I will hold off on buying a ticket just yet, but I have booked my brother-in-law’s house in the ‘nooga. Last year, my friends and I were first in line to buy final championship tickets after the last playoff game in Boone, and our seats were in the VERY top row in the endzone. We called them our penthouse seats.
Tickets were not given away or sold for $5. Standing room only tickets were being sold so why would tickets be given away?
We obviously take care of our sponsors – how else would we raise money as a non-profit organization? We hold 1500 tickets of the best seats on each side for the teams and then try and give the teams as many more tickets as they request. I think your Athletic Dept. would agree we did everything we could to get App St more tickets. We gave the number of tickets they ask for and then gave them more so complain to them. Should we not sell tickets to the game locally and then have an empty stadium and lose money if the two teams don’t bring anyone? Only App St buys that many tickets, most teams take a max of 4000 tickets. We have always been able to give every other team as many tickets as they have asked for.
Most of the hotels are booked b/c App St. fans have already booked in the hopes that their team makes it. Most of it is not from conventions.
We are doing something right as this is our eleventh year hosting and many people return each year even if their team doesn’t make it. If you don’t like it then stay home and watch it on TV.