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As someone who has lived in the DMV, Blacksburg, and Atlanta, I think Fireman is right. I have no stats, just anecdotal evidence.
First of all, Athans is an about an hour and 20 minutes (about 70 miles) from Midtown Atlanta - that's definitely something that can be made a day trip. Additionally, it's not fair to compare Roanoke to Atlanta. Atlanta currently has 3 professional sports teams, Roanoke will never have a major league team in any sport. Finally, Atlanta is a destination city for UGA's alumni base. The number of UGA fans in or between Atlanta and Athens very much outnumbers the amount of Hokies in or between Roanoke and Blacksburg.
If you want to expand Cassel, that's a fair opinion to have. However, I don't think it's wise to depend on the people of Roanoke to populate the open seats.
It may be 2 hours away from downtown, or 4 if you leave at rush hour, but it is only 1 hour from the eastern metro area, which is still much larger than Roanoke.
Athens is an hour away from large suburbs of Atlanta like Decatur. Expecting VT to sell out when its largest section of fan base lives 3-6 hours away is a disservice to them. It says you "should sell out" which will not happen on a regular basis because of the population around Blacksbug, selling season tickets to fans in NOVA, Richmond and the 757 means empty seats on weeknight games, expanding the seating numbers will only make the place look more empty.
What are you talking about, Athens is 2 hrs away from Atl (certainly does not qualify as part of the metro area). Meanwhile B'burg is a mere 30 mins from the 4th largest met area in the big VA. So while I agree about it being "40k more than burg" I respectfully disagree it would be a disservice.
It just wasn't conducive to a high energy atmosphere
Definitely have to disagree, as vtdlang has mentioned. I also had season tickets in '06/'07 as well as '05/'06. Student section was for the most part, wild! Loved my front row seats
I think the problem is becoming that with every successive generation, any diplomatic resolution for unification becomes significantly less likely. You already have a full generation of North Koreans who have no direct knowledge of how the Soviet Union propped up Kim Il-sung for political reasons, and another generation coming up under that one. Whereas early on, North Koreans might have rolled their eyes and gone along with the cult of personality that developed in the government for fear of persecution, you now have millions of North Koreans who actually buy into the Glorious Leader mantra.
Meanwhile, the fire of reunification is dying in the South. As the passion to work toward reunification dwindles, to me that means the only reasonable course to expect is reunification through the catastrophic collapse of North Korea, which is inevitable, but also the absolute worst way to go about reunification.
I think you're 100% right that the younger generation of South Koreans will be more efficient in approaching reunification. It's just a shame that their approach will almost certainly be as a disaster contingency plan, a bracing against the inevitable rather than reaching toward reunification through diplomacy.
When it happens, it's going to be awful for a whole lot of people.
I think he meant where was the promotions for the game and where was the coach buying students tickets like Buzz did.
VT Promotions didn't handle ticket prices/seating, that's the NIT/WNIT's call since they're sponsoring the tournament.
Denton, Texas must have slipped the committee a 20....
I went to Appalachian State as well. I decided to stay in state to save money and the reason why I choose ASU is because it reminded me of a smaller Blacksburg (Both of my parents are VT Alums and even lived in Blaksburg for a little bit)
So I have a perfect bracket on CBS and I'm tied for last in this group.
While I would love to see Cassell renovated for the basketball team, I do wonder if the day will soon come if there needs to be a new arena altogether.
A new arena doesn't necessarily mean Cassell has to go away though - it could possibly be refurbished in a way that allows for other sports to maximize the venue. Take a look at how NC State is renovating Reynolds Coliseum for their women's basketball, volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics teams:
Link - REVIVING A LEGEND
Athens metro area has 40,000 more people than Blacksburg and is close to a metro area with 5.5 million people. VT can't compete with those population numbers and to pretend they can is a disservice to the VT basketball program and the entire athletic dept.
I actually like the smaller Arena, I think it's scarier and more intimate. Look at Cameron Indoor - arguable the most difficult stadium to play in nationwide, but less than 10k capacity. Yes, smaller student body, but the metropolitan area is far larger.
To be fair to the rest of the PAC-12, they couldn't let the California schools participate due to the fact that it is Garden and Gun Magazine and there are more than 10 shots to pick. Because of that, it is considered a high capacity magazine poll, and high cap mags are illegal in Cali.
I regularly go to the women's games, but did not attend last night. Student attendance is already pretty low when it is usually free, so I can't see $5 tickets (Where you at VT Promotions and Coach Wolff with free student tickets?) and St. Patrick's day making it much easier for students to choose the game.
I understand your point about the students, but I would like to say that there were some students there (myself included). As there isn't ever really a true student section for most women games, we venture over to the courtside seats for the better view. Although, I would agree I saw less other students than normal last night.
Athens and Columbia(debatably) are not major metro areas and their hoops teams don't have huge cult followings.
I know that they do not put fans in the seats for their games but last night was appalling. If there was more than a couple of hundred fans there, it wasn't much more. I had a whole row to myself in the choice seats. There wasn't one student in the student section and except for the pep band and cheer people, it was nada. I did see a couple of football players here and there. I've seen more fans at softball or baseball games. So sad to see a P5 team with so little support. And, even the officials seemed to be JV guys for both sides.
🎸OG LEG KING 🎸
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10 years 3 months
# | Buzz on Virginia Tech's NIT Experience "Critical for how we start non-conference next year" that's a long walk to carry torches and pitchforks
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10 years 3 months
# | Buzz on Virginia Tech's NIT Experience "Critical for how we start non-conference next year" Or one specific hurdler, the Queen
Picking Arizona to make the Elite Eight was a great idea.