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I know this was already posted to the ECU thread, but it probably warrants its own thread, given the potential financial impact to those involved.
HokieSports: Virginia Tech Athletics announces refund policy for ECU game ticket holders
(Because the article is so short, I am copy/pasting everything below. Please see the above link if you'd like to see the official statement for yourself)
BLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech Athletics officials are now beginning the process of refunding all tickets purchased for the home football game against East Carolina University scheduled for Sept. 15.
"We would like to thank our fans for their patience," Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock said. "We will continue to explore and evaluate options for this year as practical, and into the future. We'll keep evaluating and give our best for Virginia Tech and the Hokies. We will make more details available once they are determined and finalized."
Important details for fans holding tickets to the cancelled Sept. 15 game:
- All credit card orders will be automatically refunded to the card that was used for the initial purchase.
- All check and cash orders will be refunded by check to the account that made the purchase.
- Individuals who purchased single-game tickets for the Sept. 15 contest at the ticket office window at Lane Stadium with a check or cash for the game against ECU you will need to contact the Ticket Office at hokietix@vt.edu to explore refund options.
- All tickets ordered through StubHub, Virginia Tech's official secondary market partner, will be refunded by Stub Hub.
- All tickets ordered through other secondary marketplaces will also be refunded. Individuals who purchased tickets via secondary markets other than StubHub should contact those vendors directly to inquire about their refund.
- Patrons should expect refunds to appear on their credit card statements within three to six weeks, depending on how long their financial institution takes to release the refund.
- Patrons with additional questions are encouraged to contact the Ticket Office at (540) 231-6731 or 1-800-828-3244.
Somewhere, in the wilderness, a HokieStone cries into the abyss....
With all of this said, its worth remembering how this all went down. First, ECU canceled the game without consulting VT. Then, Whit commented as such to the media about it, saying he would have rather waited to make an informed decision. Next, its rumored VT is looking to collect a refund for the $500k fee we paid ECU to play the game. Then, ECU media unleashes hell at VT, using the support they gave us on 4/16/2007 as reason we are horrible for even suggesting a refund. ECU travels to Orlando, where they are playing their game a week later, before the hurricane hits NC. ECU and NC State agree to play a game on December 1st, with ECU collecting a $300k fee for playing in Raleigh. Virginia Tech is forced to offer refunds for all game ticket purchases for the canceled ECU game.
ECU canceled our game, refused to refund our check, had their media leverage the VT shooting to win the PR battle, scheduled another game with another payout, and forced us to refund our ticket sales.
This series needs to be canceled and burned. Permanently.
Comments
The only thing good to come out of Eastern North Carolina is barbecue.
I say dump ECU and see if we can pick up like an App State or someone like that.
I can get with this. I have no beef with App St and anything that give me an excuse to visit western NC is just fine by me.
Edit: I lied about having no beef with App St. I forgot about this little trivia tidbit... Lane Stadium once held the distinction of being the FBS stadium east of the Mississippi with the highest elevation. Then App St joined FBS.
I really love western NC but don't see the benefit from a football perspective of replacing ECU with App State. I think the replacement should either be someone worse that we will beat every year (hopefully) or a power 5 team that we might get respect for beating. Having a team like App State is just asking for a season to get de-railed. They are consistently under-rated in polls and public opinion compared to advanced analytics ranking systems and it shows when they upset people.
App State is in the same conference as ECU though.
What about a 6 year home and home with Tennessee? That would be my ideal opponent if we had to have a little longer contract for a Power 5 team.
They won't play in Lane. They're too content with sucking on their own field to play elsewhere in non-conference.
App State is in the Sun Belt conference. ECU is in the American Athletic whatever.
Mistyped - meant to say same level of conference (G5) although AAC is considered the dominant conference in teh Group of 5.
You good.
I get what you're saying. It's essentially the same situation we are (hopefully were) in with ECU. We get no respect for beating them and get dogged for losing to them. BUT, I'd absolutely rather play App St and go to Boone every other year than ECU and Greenville. If I had to pick between the two, I'd pick App St every time.
My wife is from Eastern NC, so I would have to say there are two good things that come from that part of the world.
A leg for praising your wife.
I was born east of New Bern. I will leave it to other to say if that adds to the argument of anything good coming out of eastern North Carolina.
Nevermind. This whole hate ECU circle jerk is annoying. Justified, maybe, but annoying.
Not directly, but their decision to immediately reschedule with NCSU, leaving us hanging without a partner to play.... Yeah, I'd say their actions are a big indirect reason for this outcome. Especially with how the rest of it all played out.
Sorry I edited my post because I knew someone would say that and you're not wrong. Look I hate ECU and everything that happened but the conversations have mainly been an embarrassment. and childish.
Nah ecu is a embarrassment
Does this mean we aren't doing a double header leading off with ECU on Thursday?
Embarrassing and childish, perhaps, but fuck ECU. If we don't use this as a reason to cancel that series, then I would seriously question the judgment by those making such a decision. Why on earth would we keep this series alive after this shitshow?
Does anyone know what the financial implications are if we were to cancel the series?
Not a clue, but I'll give Whit $10 bucks or 6 dairy queen coupons to cancel, his choice.
we can take the Michigan money they paid us to cancel (if there is some kind of pay out to cancel the series) to get ECU to cancel and then we can get app st and sparty to play us in those places just to stick it to them both.
The financial implications if we cancel the series is the $100 I'll donate if this happens.
The series "helps recruiting" except for it doesn't help it one iota.. other than that, sure lets travel there every other year and give them a great ACC team at home. It's awesome.
I don't think "helps recruiting" was actually given as a reason for the ECU series. It was more "close proximity" and "willing to schedule a lot of games so we don't have to spend a lot of time building schedules".
No I'm sick and tired of ecu
Because scheduling is a huuuuge pain in the ass. There's a reason games with Arizona are scheduled in 2030 (or whenever). It's just not easy to add teams to the schedule, everyone else's schedule is filled too.
Meh, money talks. Mysteriously Auburn doesn't have a 15 year home and home series with Troy. WVU doesn't have a 15 year home and home with Marshall. Clemson doesn't have a 15 year home and home with App State.... Money talks. You can get games, Weaver and now Whit just don't like to spend money.
Fixed it for you.
It would be nice if you could give citations to your frequent statements when it comes to program finances.
If Whit wanted to get out of this series, some cancellation fee (which maybe you can provide since you seem to know) wouldn't be the issue holding him back.
Sure the school lost money last year in the athletic budget and year prior only made about 3 million. So no there isn't money laying around to bring in all these top teams you seem to think are just lining up to play at Tech.
And that surface level way of looking at numbers doesn't tell you any of the story, yet you regularly make posts like you're logging the books for VT athletics.
What capital expenditures were there last year which may have been on the books to contribute to the loss (or as you put it 'lost money')? You think the bulk of the English Field, softball field, and indoor track construction had something to do with that, or not?
What contracts are being paid? Which are no longer? What revenue streams are new? Which existing ones have appreciating clauses in them? What are the revenues the ACC will be distributing this year vs. last? Have there been significant changes to giving or donations?
Money is allocated all over the place, and while increasing revenue is the goal, 'making money' as you put it, or 'socking away profits' as it comes across, isn't the goal of the Athletic Dept. Just because expenditures are high, or are in-line with revenues, does not mean funds aren't set aside or earmarked for things such as scheduling and scheduling contracts. That's a very large expenditure (liability) you're assuming has no dedicated funding or contingency planning built into the budget
One thing is for sure. A real uniform deal wouldn't hurt.
There's a difference between scheduling a 15 year series, and paying to get out of one. Blame Weaver for this one, not Whit; it wasn't his idea.
I do believe you're right about one thing... Money does talk. If you (or the fan base in general) really wants to get out of the series with ECU, then we need to raise enough money to buy us out of the existing contract, and pay some other team to show up. Until this donation comes in, I don't see how canceling this series makes sense for a program (relatively) strapped for cash.
Because finding a suitable replacement on short notice is nearly impossible. We saw how that played out when Michigan cancelled on us this past offseason.
I'm in full agreement. This series needs to be canceled. The game was fun for them for a few years at the end of Beamer's tenure when they looked forward to the opportunity of knocking us off. But since we've wiped the floor with them two years in a row now, I think they probably care just as little as us about the long-term viability of this series. Cut ties and move on.
Also tangentially related, please for the love of all that is good, can we not play VMI in 2026? Scheduling them is way bush league. They may be one of the worst programs in all of Division 1 (losing record every year since '81). They are legitimately terrible, and this is simply for the military ties/history and nostalgia (why anyone would want to remember the days when they were our biggest rival and beat us regularly). We should almost give ourselves an automatic loss just for scheduling them.
The VMI 2026 game has a lot of intrigue. Paul Johnson will have them playing scrappy by then. Could get interesting.
I didn't realize ECU media pulled the whole 4/16 thing, I thought it was just idiot Twitter commenters
It was Greenville sports writers being idiots on Twitter.
They didn't. It was.
Makes sense. I do remember one guy who was like a writer or radio guy who bitched about it on his personal account but after that it was all illiterate Eastern NC natives
They didn't and its part of the whole childish and annoying part of this.
Cancel the ECU series
...using the support they gave us on 4/16/2007 as reason we are horrible for even suggesting a refund...
...had their media leverage the VT shooting to win the PR battle...
I don't like the ECU series either and I hate the way this was handled from top to bottom, but I'm going to repeat myself again on this. A few tweets from fans and football writers doesn't represent how the university or even their fans as a whole feel about this. You keep harping on this like their president or their head coach came out and made these statements. If you want to take tweets made by Joe's like you and me to represent a whole organization or a fan base, you could spin anything any way you'd like. At least their official Twitter account doesn't continuously put out bush league comments like ours.
It was ECU beat writers who pulled this. The media surrounding ECU. If I meant ECU specifically, I would have said ECU directly. But it was their media who pulled that.
ECU canceled our game, refused to refund our check, had their media leverage the VT shooting to win the PR battle, scheduled another game with another payout, and forced us to refund our ticket sales.
Ya, okay. It reads a little different to me. You've also been making these blanket statements about ECU and the tragedy since the cancellation.
Glad for the clarification.
It reads that way to you because that's how it's written.
I know, I was being diplomatic with a spoonful of sarcasm.
I would like to see what would happen if NC State wins the Atlantic Division and ended up in the ACCCG. Seems unlikely it will happen, but would be interesting to see how it would unfold.
Something tells me that ECU would pursue whatever cancellation fee was written into the contract.
I thought the contract was contingent on NC State's availability. If NCSt makes the ACCCG, they simply aren't available to play.
Stop, that doesn't fit the narrative of ECU being worse than cancer.
Frikkin' ECU.
That is all.
This post was fine for the refund announcement. But then you clearly used what would have been a fine post and relevant info as just an excuse to inflammatorily rehash the cancelled game and continue your venting about ECU.
Completely unnecessary and please stop. It's not a good look.
To the extent they screwed us over, I'm sure Whit will take care of it. There's no need to continuously rehash this and bring up what Twitter trolls raised as the official ECU actions.
I disagree, sure the vast majority of us are not and never will be major power donors.
But if fan frustration with the ECU series in general and certain points of friction more specifically arent raised often and with gusto its all the easier for the AD as a whole to ignore them.
Absolutely. Any fan, donor or not, can and should contact the athletic department and let them know how they feel.
But there's no need to post a new thread under the guise of providing the cancellation info when it truly is just another vent thread about the ECU cancellation. There have been several threads on that topic.
I respectfully disagree. The fact that VT is offering refunds is new information and completely warrants a new thread. It's especially good info to those of us that bought tickets for that game.
Tangentially related: Fuck ECU.
Yes. That's why my original post said that info warranted a new thread.
However that info seemed to just be an excuse to post the other half of the thread which was a rant about the ECU game being cancelled.
Also, the fact that VT is offering refunds confirms that ECU cancelling the game cost the VT athletic department millions of dollars in lost revenue. But yeah, ok, let's let them off the hook for the $500k cancellation fee and all that.
Oh give me a break dude... This is a fan site and we are going to rip a program that screwed our school over any chance we get
Folks on this site are literally the only ones still bitching about this. All the triangle area beat writers are totally over it lol.
*Folk
Assuming you're talking about the Triangle area of NC, well, of course they are. Greenville isn't part of the Triangle.
But the triangle area writers were the one hemming and hawing about it.
Squirrel!!!
They are onto basketball season now. Once they realized they were wrong, they gave up on it.
Right? No one in North Carolina cares anymore. Time for us to move on. The topic of refunded tickets was warranted, but it was pointless rehashing this entire debate.
Well of course they are "over it" if ECU pocketed money from VT and wants this all to go away with a wad of cash and not upholding their end of the deal.
Meanwhile, VT loses out on the $$$, so of course our fan base isn't over it.
why tho?
Well lets see. We have weekly reminders that fundraising sucks, the athletic department desperately needs our money to make ends meet, we can't keep up with the Joneses, and now we're realizing that ECU canceling the game means we are having to refund all ticket purchases. Ticket prices for that game were $85 for Zone 1, $65 for Zone 2, and $50 for Zone 3. Assuming that student seating makes up roughly 15% of the attendance, we lost, at a minimum, $3.75m in ticket sales alone for this game. Tack on the $500k that we paid ECU to play, and that number jumps to $4.25m for just kicking off. And then factor in parking and concessions.
So yeah, we should be very annoyed with how much this cost us. Its a significant amount for a school that isn't hesitant to tell us how poor it is.
Counterpoint, it's football. So really there's no reason to be annoyed with any of this!
Counter to your counter, we (edit: we meaning VT) paid to not have a football game, so us as fans missed out on another opportunity to see our team
My counter to your counter to my counter, it was ECU and none of us want to see that game anyway haha.
Can we keep ECU and dump BC? I'm more sick of them being our "permanent crossover".
Okay...I admit, dump them both.
It could be worse, we could be playing Syracuse every year as our "permanent crossover".
I'd vote for NCSU to replace BC in a heart beat for that spot. It would be a better bump for both teams SOS and in my experience they have a pretty good fan base as well. Not to mention a chance for some more southern exposure to bolster the #NC2VT movement!
Not gonna happen, because NC State is paired up with UNC. Of all the permanent crossovers, the only ones that don't really have significant history is VT/BC and UVA/Louisville.
I say we make a deal with UVA and trade off crossover partners every couple of years.
Trade UVa for UofL. UofL-BC becomes a xD and VT-UVa becomes one. We still play every year, but opens the door for a possible VT-UVa ACC Championship Game.
2 things:
1) UVA and UNC play in the "South's Oldest Rivalry" every year. It's not as big of a deal as VT-UVA or Duke-UNC, but it's still something that they want to continue. Can't just swap UVA with Louisville without creating a cascade of further changes, and you can't just swap VT and BC since we have a "minor rivalry" with Miami and GT.
2)
The only ones who care about UVA-UNC are older UVa alumni. I've lived in the Triangle my whole life and not once before I heard it from a Hoo did I know about the "South's Oldest Rivalry". It's literally a footnote on UNCs season.
And I didn't say it was a GOOD chance...
Coming up with a logic game where you must group all the ACC teams into divisions and satisfy all these "rivalry" rules would make a hell of an LSAT question.
A few things have always bothered me about our divisional alignment. One being BC just sticks out like a sore thumb and really looks out of place anywhere. Secondly, the conference is trying to be as symmetrical as possible with the team groupings. Virginia is is the only state with multiple schools that are all contained in the same division (Florida is split, NC is split with one big state school and one small private school in each division.)
If it wasn't for preserving our former Big East rivalry with Miami, VT more naturally belongs in the Atlantic division. Clemson, VT, and NC State are all very similar schools from a historical, cultural, and academic perspective. Our fan bases are also similar and very football oriented. It's a shame we don't play them more often. Also Wake is technically the closest school geographically to VT, just edging out UVa. We also have some history with FSU from the national title game to some matchups back when both were independents.
I would move us to the Atlantic, move BC to the coastal so they can have wine and cheese with UVA and UNC (and Boston is far more "coastal" than Blacksburg), and UVA could be our crossover while BC becomes Louisville's. Yeah, we lose VT-Miami, but that game hasn't been what it was in the Big East for a while, and I would gladly trade that for an opportunity against our more geographic rivals and peer institutions, plus an annual matchup with FSU to boot.
I've done this thought exercise before and lets see if I remember how I did it. My goal is to pair everyone off with their rival and then just split down the middle.
Clemson-GT
FSU-Miami
VT-UVa
UNC-NCSU
Duke-Wake
Syracuse-BC
Louisville-Pitt
Those last ones purely for geographical purposes
Obviously, if you're the ACC, you don't want to stack one division too hard vs the other, because you want to maximize odds of keeping teams ranked high, so split your top teams (Clemson, FSU, Miami, VT) between conferences like we have now. Then pair off down the list.
Atlantic
Clemson - Florida State - Virginia - Wake - Syracuse - Louisville - NC State
Coastal
Miami - Virginia Tech - Georgia Tech - UNC - Duke - BC - Pitt
And make the last week of the regular season 'Rivalry Week' where all cross divisional rivals play.
Now we're way off topic but if we restructure the ACC we may as well just completely get rid of the divisional separation and go through a set rotational schedule keeping a rivalry maybe + 1 as a static game. Top 2 teams play in the the ACCG. You're much more likely to have the best team in the conference representing the conference in this set up IMO
That wouldn't work. When the NCAA made the change to their rules to allow the Big 12 to hold a conference championship game, they changed the rule to say that a conference must fit one of the following criteria to hold a conference game, instead of completely deregulating it:
- Must play a full round-robin schedule and send the top 2 teams to the championship game
- Must have two divisions, each of which plays a round-robin schedule, and the winner of each division advances to the championship game
The Big 12 is the only conference that chose the first option. Even the Sun Belt decided to split their 10 teams into divisions to avoid having a 9th conference game.
Doesn't work. FSU-UF, GT-UGA, Clemson-SoCar and UL-UK already exist on the last week of the regular season.
Easy we just move those teams into the ACC
Rivalry week can run 8 days over two weeks. The teams with SEC rivals can play their ACC rivals the week before. So, FSU/Miami, GT/Clemson, and Louisville/BC would play the week before Thanksgiving.
Trust me, UNC hates UVA even to this day.
I have incredible sauces on this.
Umm, have you seen the Atlantic division lately? LOLVA would still keep it's streak of not being in the championship game going for the foreseeable future. Dare I say they have a better chance in the Coastal.
LOL, it'll happen less often than FSU-Miami ACCCG, so why even suggest that it might be possible or even a good thing.
via GIPHY
Forget ECU. You think they'll refund my 4 game package (x2) based off how much we suck?
Paul Johnson owes me for making me watch his shitty, boring ass, 1940's era style of football and Bud can chip in while he's at it for not ramming the ball down CPJ's fat face.