The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

LESS than a week remains before the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl kicks off at the Thomas A Robinson stadium and National Sports Authority executives expect ticket sales for the event to peak in the days to come.

Jeff Beckles, general manager for the National Sports Authority, said in true Bahamian fashion, he expects a surge at the last minute to boost struggling ticket sales for the game, scheduled for noon on December 24.

“Tickets sales are typically slow as most Bahamian events are, but we anticipate, much like the eight or nine events that we have had in the last 17 months that the local public will make a run at the last minute,” he said. “Like the IAAF World Relays, we sold about 25 to 30 per cent more tickets two days out from the event so I think we will see a similar ticket purchasing pattern here.”

A halftime show featuring the Valley Boys, a pre-game show featuring the Bahamas All-Star Band, and free samples of a new flavour from Popeyes chicken to the first 5,000 patrons in the Thomas A Robinson stadium will accent the battle on the gridiron between the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and the Central Michigan Chippewas.

The game will be televised on ESPN and carried by ESPN Radio viewed by an expected 110 million patrons.

Dr Johnson said for the stadium to reach NCAA regulations to host the event at the expected standard, an investment into the infrastructure had to be made.

“When we say that we are going to fix up the stadium for football and we are going to spend a few hundred thousand dollars, we do that with the intention of making millions of dollars next week. That is the business we are in,” he said.

“Each event brings new challenges. In track and field we had a class two track, so if you break a world record it wouldn’t count. So we could not host an event with the biggest stars in the world to a class two, we had to upgrade the track. Similarly, for an NCAA Division bowl game we had to make some upgrades. We have simple things to do. The pitch is a FIFA level soccer pitch, but we have to position the goal posts properly, we have to adjust the locker rooms because we need some adaptation for football because of the spacing and the details to the logistics. We had to upgrade the practice facility. The infield on the old track needs some work. There are little things like that that will make the whole thing run properly.”

The Bahamas Bowl will be the second venture for the NSA into American football following September’s HBCUX Classic featuring the Texas Southern Tigers and Central State Marauders.

Both events are set to become staples in the local sporting landscape for the immediate future.

“We are not setting the stadium up for next week, we are setting it up for the future. Every September we will have some form of Classic and every December we will have a bowl game so we have to upgrade to make to continuously host American football,” he said. “The NSA continues to improve. These are not one off events, we are doing events that will become institutionalised. We are signing off on events that are going to happen for the next few years.”