Opening day -- St. Patrick's day

[ChampionOfSteel]

Is Cincinnati packed, ready, and headed to Columbia this weekend?

Is Columbia ready for them to showup? Is the field turf/goalposts in place?

And I guess most importantly has "FrontLine Insurance" been paid? ;)

[xball44]

COS,

All very good questions, my take:

Just for background, remember the last time the Marshalls were scheduled to travel south (think Osceola Playoff Game), they couldn't afford to. Vegas has them making the trip at even money.

My guess is that Pewonski will have a field (if it says Greensboro you are paid at 2-1).

The over-under on attendance (actual, not reported is 600).

The over-under on number of hot dogs Pewonski will personally eat is (9).

[ChampionOfSteel]

COS,

All very good questions, my take:

Just for background, remember the last time the Marshalls were scheduled to travel south (think Osceola Playoff Game), they couldn't afford to. Vegas has them making the trip at even money.

My guess is that Pewonski will have a field (if it says Greensboro you are paid at 2-1).

The over-under on attendance (actual, not reported is 600).

The over-under on number of hot dogs Pewonski will personally eat is (9).

What's the over/under for having player insurance?

What's the latest line on someone getting a punctured lung?

Will Jim Terry be there to make a cameo appearance?

[baydaddy77]

COS,

All very good questions, my take:

Just for background, remember the last time the Marshalls were scheduled to travel south (think Osceola Playoff Game), they couldn't afford to. Vegas has them making the trip at even money.

My guess is that Pewonski will have a field (if it says Greensboro you are paid at 2-1).

The over-under on attendance (actual, not reported is 600).

The over-under on number of hot dogs Pewonski will personally eat is (9).



Xball, you must have worked in Vegas at one time. In typical Vegas fashion, your predictions are right down the middle. I think:

Will have a field w/o Greensboro on it (althought there may be some slight miss-tint green color in the end zone where it was painted over)

I'll have to go over on the attendance. There were only about 60-75 people at the Fanfest and probably only about 75% of them will show. I can only see them selling about 200-300 tickets, but I think they're have a lot of freebies at the last minute to create a crowd.

As far as hot dogs, I'll have to take the under. I doubt he gets free food and I don't think he'll cough up the cash for them, that'd be close to $30.

[preeths]

I wouldn't be suprised to see a decent crowd the first game or two. That's what happened in Greensboro. Then the bottom fell out.

[baydaddy77]

I don't doubt that there would be a decent crowd if people know the team is there. They announced the Fanfest weeks ago, but there was no time given until a few days before the event. I do wonder how many people of the 60-75 would have shown up without the Colonial Center sending out their email blast. It looked great, had ticket prices, etc. While they handed out t-shirts (my 3 year old will have a collectors item if they go bust), but it was the guys that owns stingersnest.com that had the schedules printed. We'll have to see if it is too little, too late.

[sportznut]

I gotta question......

If the league is the so called owner of most of the expansion teams.. then is the league buying new fields for them to play on? I mean some of the fields i have seen used ( ours included) had barely been held together by anything.... So if the league can buy .. what... 14-20 fields for the new teams then why havent they done this for teams that existed and maybe that would have enticed them to stay...

[preeths]

Is Cincinnati packed, ready, and headed to Columbia this weekend?

Cincinnati has been packed for awhile. The Marshals are now based in Dayton. :D

[sportznut]

Also... Is the first game of the season going to be on the NIFL Braodcasting Network they are advertising on the main page of the league website? And still have the affiliation with NFL Officials? Or have they STILL forgtten to take that off the website?

[Red Zone]

So if the league can buy .. what... 14-20 fields for the new teams then why havent they done this for teams that existed and maybe that would have enticed them to stay...

They could lease the field or buy used. There's lots of stuff around from now defunct teams. As far as attendance goes, I'll say about 2500. If there's more than that, it's because they gave away lots of tickets in the hopes of getting people in the door, see the product and then come back and buy the ticket to future games.

[finatic]

i saw a crowd of about 7500 at the first game for charleston last season....next game it was about 2000, next game 1300, next game 1000, last game was maybe 850.

the colonial center is a great play for indoor football....they need to get advertising going, without that they are doomed before saturday.

[ncxcstud]

Being that Columbia, SC has one of the biggest St. patty's day parties around...and it's spring break for USC...I wouldn't expect there to be more than 500-800 people in attendance. Hopefully what we pay to see is 'good' and word of mouth travels for the next game.

It's a crap weekend to have the first game of the season on our part. Hopefully we'll make the best of it.

I've got around 10 of my friends and family going (again, can't beat 5 buck tickets), so we'll see how it goes.

[sportsfan27]

For the sake of the SC fan who seem to be puoring their heart and soul, thank god someone is, into this team. I hope there is a huge crowd, and a good game. However with all things, date, owner, league, going against them I dont like the odds. Perhaps St. Patrick can put in a good word for the fans. Good luck.

[nksports]

Maybe St. Patrick could drive the snakes (TP, CG, CS) out of South Carolina.

[billm75]

Regardless of the turnout, I just want the people who attend to have fun and make noise.

Let's get Columbia rocking....we might even get a few inebriated leprechauns running around raising a ruckus. ;)