Sugar Bowl Playoff Postponed After New Orleans Attack
The right call but a logistical nightmare.
One of the fallouts, relatively trivial in the grand scheme of things, after yesterday’s ISIL-inspired terror attack in New Orleans was the postponement of the Sugar Bowl, which is a quarterfinal game in the college football playoff, pitting the Georgia Bulldogs against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
AP (“Sugar Bowl CFP quarterfinal between Georgia and Notre Dame postponed after deadly truck attack“):
The College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame was postponed a day because of an attack about a mile away from the Superdome early Wednesday, when authorities say a truck driver deliberately plowed into a New Year’s crowd and killed 15 people.
The game, originally scheduled for 7:45 p.m. CST at the 70,000-seat Superdome on Wednesday, was pushed back to 3 p.m. Thursday. The winner advances to the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl against Penn State.
“Public safety is paramount,” Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley said at a media briefing alongside federal, state and local officials, including Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. “All parties all agree that it’s in the best interest of everybody and public safety that we postpone the game.”
l don’t question the decision. Aside from public safety, the last thing authorities needed while they were investigating a terrorist attack was tens of thousands of football fans flooding the area. But, holy moly, what a logistical nightmare.
The decision to postpone the game meant numerous traveling fans with tickets would not be able to attend. Ticket prices online plummeted in some cases to less than $25 as fans with plans to depart on Thursday tried to unload them.
“We can’t get new flights,” said Lisa Borrelli, a 34-year-old Philadelphia resident who came to New Orleans with her fiance, a 2011 Notre Dame graduate.
Postponing the game “was absolutely the right call,” she said. “I completely understand.”
She said they paid more than $250 per ticket and hadn’t bothered listing them for resale yet because prices were so low.
“Of course we’re disappointed to miss it and to lose so much money on it, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter,” Borrelli said. “We’re fortunate enough that we’ll be fine.”
Borrelli has a great attitude about it but, yes: thousands of people will have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to buy tickets, fly to New Orleans, book hotel rooms, and not be able to attend the game a day later. Unless they had already planned to stay the weekend, it’s likely that they won’t have anywhere to stay. And most of us book nonrefundable tickets these days.
And that’s to say nothing of the two teams involved. Presumably, Georgia and Notre Dame both have private charters for their players, coaches, band, and staff. But that likely means they weren’t planning to spend another night in New Orleans.
For that matter, how the hell do you get up to play a game after this?
Ironic side story:
HISD’s Waltrip High School band students, staff safe after attack in New Orleans, district says
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Yes, trivial in the grand scheme of things, but I’d still planned to watch the game tonight. Yesterday, officials stated that the game was being postponed 24 hours, and the media disseminated the delay as 24 hours, so I reasonably figured it would kick off around 8 tonight. I see now it’s scheduled for 3 p.m. today. Perhaps it’s nothing I needed to watch anyway.
@Eusebio: Its a mess all around