The headline of today’s Meineke Car Care Bowl section of the Charlotte Observer reads:
“Sales slow for Pack and…who?”
Look at that again. “SLOW” ticket sales. SLOW ticket sales “for (the) Pack”. Oh my God. Is this a joke that missed the mark?
Talk about living up to the stereotype of being out of touch with reality and not understanding how the real world works? The Charlotte Observer has given the New York Times a run for its money in the category of ridiculousness. Damn the truth!! Who needs facts to mess up a nice backslap from the baby-blue-led local rag?
I hate to ruin a nice, standard-quo, liberal rag’s attempt at “journalism” with a little bit of truth. But, let’s have a reality check here just so that we can get some things right for those of you who care about drawing your conclusions off of facts and not the Charlotte Observer.
FACTS:
* Over 55,000 total seats for the Meineke Car Care Bowl have been sold for Saturday’s game.
* Over 25,000 seats for the game have been sold through NC State’s ticket office.
* More bowl tickets have been sold through NC State’s ticket office than any other ACC school for a bowl this season.
* Bowl officials expect almost 50,000 NC State supporters in the stands on Saturday who have obtained tickets to the game.
* No other bowl game in the entire country outside of the National Championship (played in Southern California) and potentially the Fiesta Bowl will have as many fans in attendance supporting a single school in a game.
* No other bowl in the entire country will have a greater proportion of fans at a game than NC State will in Charlotte.
Charlotte Observer Conclusion: NC State’s ticket sales are “slow”.
Could you be more confused? I know that I couldn’t. Calling NC State’s ticket sales of the Meineke Car Care Bowl “slow” is like calling Mother Teresa the most selfish person in the history of mankind. NOTHING could be further from the truth. But, why let the truth get in the way of a critical headline?
Of course, none of this is a surprise to you if you have been reading SFN; we set this stage for you a couple of weeks ago on this topic, explaining that the CLT OBS would continue to mis-interpret and fail to apporpriately analyze and present information. What can you expect from journalists who have no real-world experience in critical thinking or data analysis?
The “article” goes on to try to explain why NC State’s ticket sales are “slow” this year. No kidding. No…really. It does.
To be fair – most of the comments made in the piece are very similar to the comments that we shared weeks ago. They are all valid reasons to explain why NC State has not SOLD OUT 72,000 seat Bank of America Stadium. They are NOT valid reasons to explain why NC State’s ticket sales have been “slow” (when no human who could spell their name after 50 years of trying could legitimately label our sales “slow” in light of the facts previously presented.)
Does the public REALLY need explanation as to why NC State isn’t bringing as many fans as Carolina did last year…when they were playing Boston College (and not South Florida)? NC State is attending our 5th bowl game in 6 years with a last place divisonal finish. The story here is NOT that we may not match Carolina’s attendance from last year; the REAL STORY is that NC State is blowing away almost any other team’s bowl attendance in the ENTIRE COUNTRY.
Why haven’t our media relations folks been pumping this story?
Despite my suspicions, I still do not believe that headline writers for the Charlotte Observer actually post on PackPride.com. But, I am going to pay a little closer attention in the future.
