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Pay wall free New Haven Register: Jeff Jacobs: NCAA, CBS should be on the hook for leaving fans hanging in Hartford
>>The thousands of fans who missed much of the first half of the Villanova-St. Mary’s NCAA Tournament game Thursday at the XL Center deserve more than an apology.
They deserve a refund.<<
>>Chris Lawrence, general manager of the XL Center, explained to the Hartford Courant that the building did everything it could in anticipation of the squeeze. Security staff had been increased, the cleaning staff was doubled. A rarely used fourth entrance on Ann Uccello Street was opened. The max number of metal detectors allowed by fire and building codes were used. Some even had been brought over from Rentschler Field.
The hard truth is you also have an aging building not structured to handle all that human traffic at once. (Note: The XL Center’s future is also an argument for another day,) The bottom line was it took until halftime to get almost everybody in their seats.
You factor in the anxiety, the anger of missing your team — it’s understandable if a lot of folks think they were deserving of a full refund. But let’s cut the networks and the NCAA a break. After all they are, cough, in the business of promoting student-athletes.
One session, two games, four halves, one half missed. Strictly by the math, they should refund a quarter of those $300, $270 and $240 tickets. That’s a check between $60 and $75 per person. Times 14,000 tickets, that would be around $900,000. That is a fitting fine for CBS/Turner and the NCAA to pay for such a mess.<<
>>The thousands of fans who missed much of the first half of the Villanova-St. Mary’s NCAA Tournament game Thursday at the XL Center deserve more than an apology.
They deserve a refund.<<
>>Chris Lawrence, general manager of the XL Center, explained to the Hartford Courant that the building did everything it could in anticipation of the squeeze. Security staff had been increased, the cleaning staff was doubled. A rarely used fourth entrance on Ann Uccello Street was opened. The max number of metal detectors allowed by fire and building codes were used. Some even had been brought over from Rentschler Field.
The hard truth is you also have an aging building not structured to handle all that human traffic at once. (Note: The XL Center’s future is also an argument for another day,) The bottom line was it took until halftime to get almost everybody in their seats.
You factor in the anxiety, the anger of missing your team — it’s understandable if a lot of folks think they were deserving of a full refund. But let’s cut the networks and the NCAA a break. After all they are, cough, in the business of promoting student-athletes.
One session, two games, four halves, one half missed. Strictly by the math, they should refund a quarter of those $300, $270 and $240 tickets. That’s a check between $60 and $75 per person. Times 14,000 tickets, that would be around $900,000. That is a fitting fine for CBS/Turner and the NCAA to pay for such a mess.<<
