Sports in Charlotte

[SouthEndCLT811]

Crown Town Soccer has the first Independence merch via a Teespring campaign.  It's a pretty cool design with COYJ (Come On You Jacks) which hopefully becomes synonymous with the team.  Not affiliated with the blog, just want to hit the 12 shirts we need so I get mine

 

http://teespring.com/crowntownsoccer_x

[rugger62]

On November 8, there is going to be a ton of rugby at the new Rugby Athletic Center on South Tryon. Clemson, Maryland, UNC and NC State will all be in town playing games. NC State is playing Georgia Tech in Raleigh that day, but the other teams are off. Here's the flyer that Clemson put together.

 

[CLTProductions]

Panthers are facing another (very likely) loss on Sunday and the Hornets just can't find a way to win right now. sad times

[cltbwimob]

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/commissioner-wants-charlotte-be-home-2024-olympics/njJxt/

 

More talk of the Olympics in Charlotte.  One thing  I love about the who's who (elected officials, media, developers, CEOs, etc) in Charlotte-they'll be the first to tell you Charlotte is too small to have major league baseball yet they have conjured up this cockamamie notion that it is ready to host the Olympics.*

 

However, I think the Pan Am games would be a worthy pursuit.  Indianapolis hosted the Pan Am games once so I think Charlotte could as well.

 

*Note: I know there is no mention of the MLB in the story, I just find the whole idea that Charlotte is big enough to host the summer games but not MLB odd.  We are nowhere near an Olympic city.

[MilZ]

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/commissioner-wants-charlotte-be-home-2024-olympics/njJxt/

 

More talk of the Olympics in Charlotte.  One thing  I love about the who's who (elected officials, media, developers, CEOs, etc) in Charlotte-they'll be the first to tell you Charlotte is too small to have major league baseball yet they have conjured up this cockamamie notion that it is ready to host the Olympics.*

 

However, I think the Pan Am games would be a worthy pursuit.  Indianapolis hosted the Pan Am games once so I think Charlotte could as well.

 

*Note: I know there is no mention of the MLB in the story, I just find the whole idea that Charlotte is big enough to host the summer games but not MLB odd.  We are nowhere near an Olympic city.

I agree we are nowhere near able to host the Olympics, but I think that supporting a ~35000 capacity stadium for 81 games a year, in a smaller market, with a mediocre at best team in a league like MLB, mostly on weekdays, could possibly be more difficult for Charlotte. The Hornets have a hard time selling out the cable box and about 20 of the home games are on weekends.

[ah59396]

With the way the IOC does business, I hope the US never hosts another Olympics again.  Western nations are finally starting to wake up to their BS now, which is why you see the IOC moving into Asia and the Arab League looking for host cities/countries dumb enough to mortgage their gdp to host a 2 week event.

 

I'll take a PanAm games in a heartbeat, as I've mentioned before.  Toronto is getting a lot of the infrastructural improvements that come with an Olympics in preparation for the 2015 PanAm games, but not at nearly the outrageous costs of the Olympics.

[Madison Parkitect]

Totally agree with ah59396. No to the Olympics, absolutely to the PanAm games.

[HopHead]

Yes to the Super Bowl, NBA All Star games, Pan Am games, World Cup... No to the Olympics. I wouldn't want a dime of my money going to build facilities required that would be vacant after a two week event. This is one of the grand visions of city leaders that I've grown to hate. 

Edited December 5, 2014 by wend28

[ah59396]

Despite poor weather and the possibility that Florida State fans may have to decide between travel to the ACC Championship, college playoff semifinal or the national championship, 65k still managed to attend the game last night.  Another solid showing for Charlotte.  Not that I had doubts, but I really do believe the ACC championship has found its home for good.

[kermit]

^yea, 65,000 is decent attendance, and certainly much better than any of the Florida championship games. However I am bummed that a competitive championship game between one team that is only 4 hrs south and one that has a fan base that travels better than most (FSU) couldn't generate a sell out.This game couldn't even outdraw last year's much less competitive match up against Duke (but I am sure weather was a factor).

 

Having said that: 

• did any conference championship game other than the SEC sell out?
• would the game have done better in any other location? (I doubt it)
• ACC football -- yuck! (and I say that as an alum of a conference school)

 

Less related, the Checkers managed to turn out 7,000 for their game last night which overlapped FSU-Tech.

Edited December 7, 2014 by kermit

[HopHead]

A crowd of 65k at the ACC Title Game was an excellent showing. Outside of the SEC game, it was the most well attended of the conference championships. The PAC-12 game on Friday was really bad. The attendance was 45K, but that clearly wasn't counting everyone that showed. BIG 10 had about 60k, which wasn't a sellout either. Sounds like a good overall sports weekend in town... Hornets had a sellout of over 19k on Friday too.

[HopHead]

#13 Georgia will take on #21 Louisville in the Belk Bowl on Dec 30th. Talk about a big upgrade with having the SEC conference as a tie in... Sure beats Cincinnati vs Duke.

[ah59396]

WAY better match-up, wow.  I may actually go to that one.

[Madison Parkitect]

Charlotte was just announced as one of the cities for next year's Gold Cup. We'll have a group C match, which means Mexico against a smaller CONCACAF nation, but this is HUGE HUGE HUGE for this city's national soccer identity. It will also be Mexico's last group match, so it could end up being a very important game for them, results-wise.

[MilZ]

^This is great news! July 15th! http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2014/12/16/concacaf-announces-13-host-cities-us-canada-2015-gold-cup?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=News&utm_campaign=Unpaid

[cltbwimob]

In other sports news Davidson beat College of Charleston tonight and is now 9-1 in Basketball, with their only loss being to Carolina.  Not too shabby for a liberal arts school that has Harvard-esque admissions standards and a student body of less than 2,000.

 

UNC Charlotte is 6-5 and playing pretty well, although sadly, they barely lost to Georgetown tonight.  That said, Georgetown is a perennial college basketball power.

[MilZ]

So turnout wasn't so hot for the Belk Bowl. I was expecting that the SEC/ACC matchup would draw a crowd, especially knowing many Georgia fans who live in the area. I know I was at the equivalent about 5 years back, the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, which until now was the SEC/ACC game, and it was probably sold out on New Years Eve. Then again, that matchup was GT v LSU in the Georgia Dome.

[HopHead]

^Yea, I was largely disappointed to see the turnout as well. On paper it was one of the better non-CFB playoff bowl matchups. It was cold (mid-30s?) and at night though. Not as appealing as 70 degrees in a domed stadium. Most of the bowl game attendance has been dreadful this year... Watching the bowl game in Santa Clara, CA last night there looked like 15k in the stands. 

[js4life]

The chick fi-la/peach bowl also benefited from being held on NYE , so 46,000 is somewhat disappointing but the hotels Uptown aren't complaining. If it were held Saturday the game might have had better attendance

[kermit]

I was also surprised by the emptyness of the upper levels -- I thought Louisville travelled better that it looked like last night.

When I got my tickets (via ticketmaster) it showed that most of the lower level seats were sold. Given that I suspect that the weather kept lots of folks at home. It did occur to me that Georgia rarely plays cold weather games, the fans are very accustomed to heading south for bowl games.

It was a fun game for Dawgs fans.

Edited December 31, 2014 by kermit

[MilZ]

http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2015/01/08/11/44/150108-copa-america-centenario-bid-cities-rel

Charlotte not on this list for consideration for Copa 2016, from ussoccer.com . That really sucks. I wonder what happened?

[grodney]

http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2015/01/08/11/44/150108-copa-america-centenario-bid-cities-rel

Charlotte not on this list for consideration for Copa 2016, from ussoccer.com . That really sucks. I wonder what happened?

 

That does suck -- but the article reads like those are the 24 cities that have shown interest so far -- not that consideration is limited to those.  It says deadline for proposals is March 16.

 

Regardless, has anyone from Charlotte (city/county officials) expressed any notion that Charlotte would be interested?

[rugger62]

A [one day rugby camp](http://www.serevirugby.com/pages/info/index/event/493/page/high-performance-training-camps/) is coming to town on March 1st. If you know anyone (male or female) who might want to go to the Olympics and has some talent, there are going to be National team coaches and players in attendance. 

 

Edit: look at my link, I have been spending too much time on reddit....

Edited January 21, 2015 by rugger62

[SouthEndCLT811]

Charlotte Independence schedule is out!

 

http://uslpro.uslsoccer.com/teams/2015/73445879.html#SCHEDULE

 

Also a black and white image of their logo has been found via the US patent and trademark site.  All the marketing seems to look like this is going to have the same color scheme as the Hounds.  Navy and tan.

 

http://www.crowntownsoccer.com/queen-city-soccer-club-registers-trademark-on-logo-updates-website/

 

 

Kit design and final logo will be announced 2/11 on the rooftop of the Epicentre.  Hoping to see something like this design!

 

 

https://twitter.com/ComeOnYouJacks/status/560798356633821184

Edited February 2, 2015 by SouthEndCLT811

[MilZ]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/02/19/5526446/developer-asks-for-delay-in-sports.html#.VOaM2H-9KSM

Surprise, surprise. Goodsports is having issues with financing the sports complex near Bojangles Coliseum. I wonder what will happen now that the Checkers are on board with the renovations at Bojangles.