We’ve got it all – the article written before the stabbing (one of several fights) at our first basketball event of the season (“We have the best fans in college basketball!”), and the article written after the place was evacuated and the stabbed guy was taken to the hospital (“We were saddened to learn…”).
Students and administration at Syracuse seem to be taking a lot of comfort from the fact that the guy who was stabbed, and the guys in all the other fights (“[The police] received multiple reports of fights breaking out in the concourse areas near the concession stands prior to receiving a report of the stabbing…”), weren’t students, but so what? If your university has created perfect conditions for riots (the event is free and open to the public and being shitfaced is de rigueur), you’re not going to be impervious to the weaponry by virtue of having a student i.d.
*****************
The solution won’t be to change the nature of the event. The event recruits fans who will purchase tickets, and the school needs the money. The solution – a familiar one, adding delight to these free-spirited celebrations – will be to turn the arena into a police state.
October 13th, 2012 at 9:59AM
The solution won’t be to change the nature of the event.
No, I think you got this one wrong, UD. This pre-season training session is an unusual kind of event at the Dome, being free, and as a result it attracts an audience who wouldn’t normally be there on game days (being priced out of normal admission). I strongly suspect it’ll be ticket-only next year, assuming it’s held at all. They don’t really need it. I don’t believe the Dome promoters have any difficulty selling out games.
October 13th, 2012 at 10:18AM
Alan: You’re more likely than I to be correct – you live there. I wonder, though, about others who make money off of the event: organizers, merchants, and above all liquor stores and bars. The university might not need the event (is the university making no money off of it?), but others might think they do. The streets around the university, as you know, have lots of alcohol/party/gang/drug selling assaults going on, and the bars and stores supplying the liquor that gets much of this activity going are not going to be happy as the town and the university look at a number of options (not just cancelling the pre-season event at the Dome) to calm things down.