We’ve seen some odd decisions by athletic departments this fall (EcoKat, anyone?) but this might be the most puzzling of all.
ECU did not qualify for a bowl game this year, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to sit quietly during bowl season. The Pirates are trying to sell tickets to a non-existent bowl game they are dubbing the “2011 Virtual Bowl.”
It gives Pirates fans the chance to buy tickets in an attempt to outsell other schools – like Virginia Tech, perhaps? – who are actually playing in a postseason game.
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Check the e-mail from the ECU Pirate Club, which read in part: “Tickets for the Virtual Bowl are $50 a piece and can be purchase by calling the Pirate Club Offices at 252-737-4540 or by going online at ecupirateclub.com. Virtual Bowl tickets purchased will be tax deductable and donors will receive one priority point for every ticket purchased. All proceeds from the Virtual Bowl will go towards the ‘Step-Up To The Highest Level Campaign.’ Go Pirates!”
All proceeds are going to a new basketball facility but not only is the Virtual Bowl not a bowl game, it’s not even an event. It’s all just a marketing ploy to receive more athletic department donations.
Our take? It would be more dignified for someone in the department to stand in downtown Greenville with a beggar’s cup.
[WRAL]
Please if a school and the alumni want to raise money for a cause who cares what it is called as long as the donors agree. Find a life and go somewhere else. No matter what people do if idiots like you think it is wrong you complain.Who is it hurting. If you did not donate shut up.
Who the hell wrote this? Better yet, why the hell am I here?
So let me get this straight…..the bowl season has been soiled by an SEC rematch as the national championship game that has already been played in the regular season, dozens of bowl games with names like “Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl” live large while SDSU joined the Big East, a bowl bound 6-6 BCS team like Arizona State who just fired their coach for performance issues gets another coach who spent 11 months at Pitt, went 6-6 before after leaving Tulsa, ESPN keeps prostituting the college football season to corporate sponsors shy of putting NASCAR patches on the jerseys, Penn State keeps getting exposed as rotten to the gums while the NCAA keeps appearing as if they are ALL gums and ECU comes up with a marketing program based on a fan idea that raises money in the worst economy since the Great Depression and they’ve lost their dignity?!?!
Well “Lost Letterman” (whomever you are oh Cyber Phantom of journalism), I have one question that Coach Mike Ditka asked a Chicago newspaper reporter named Terry Boers 25 years ago….
“WHO YOU CRAPPIN?!?!?!”
Maybe they should obtain the Virtual Bowl domain before they start advertising it!
I’m am ecu alum and in the pirate club. When I received that email I literally laughed out loud. I’m right there with the author on his take of this fundraiser. It’s embarrassing.
It’s a Pirate thing. You wouldn’t understand.
ECU should sell the Virtual Bowl tickets to Green Bay Packers fans. After all, those Green Bay morons just bought worthless “Green Bay Packers Virtual Stock Certificates” for $250.
This sounds like a jealousy to me. Very small, very insignificant. It’s kind of like a rat in a sewer squeaking at the people above are not doing something the rat’s way. If you are not as cowardly as I think you are, I challange you to a duel. Footballs at 20 yards, on the field, until one of us falls down. I invite all to attend and fill Dowty Ficklen. Oh, excuse me obsequious one, rats can’t throw footballs, no arms, no brains, no gonads. I gave to the virtual bowl to help my university, what have you, rat, done for yours?
I think it’s a great idea. It’s a way to raise money, it provides fan incentive, and it’s cute. Other organizations do it all the time. I’ve been invited to a “virtual event” a time or two. Besides, I get requests for my alma maters all the time and they don’t use a cute concept. They just ask for a check. Whoever wrote this article either doesn’t get out much or doesn’t know anything about marketing.
Why the Jab at VT in this article??? Why dont you compare the VT donations to ECU before making such a dumb jab….or better yet, compare the donations VT has made in the 2 weeks to Deriek Crouse Memorial Fund.
VT wil buy plenty of tickets to the sugar bowl, just not over priced ones from the ticket agency. Fans, after 19 years, no better than that. ECU doesn’t go to bowls…well, real ones anyway.
Been the last five years….nice try.