September 8, 2008
Congressional Bowl Game Moved to RFK
The Washington Business Journal filed a brief report on Friday updating the status of the Congressional Bowl, the first college football bowl game ever to be held in the District of Columbia, scheduled for Dec. 20. Within the story about how EagleBank may become the game's sponsor is a piece of unexplained news: the game will now apparently be held at RFK, even though back in July, the ACC said the game would be played at Nationals Park. What happened? Can Nationals Park not easily be configured for a football game? We imagine we'll hear more about this after a press conference planned for Sept. 10. The game should feature Navy playing whichever team ends up in 9th place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
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good, lets not mess up the nice baseball only stadium that our tax dollars paid for with a bunch of guys in cleats tearing it up for a football game.
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Yes, but DC gets to rent it out and get money to pay for the damn thing. And the grass will be on its last legs by December. In fact tearing it up helps the root structure when it wakes up in early spring.
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Let's look at this from a practical perspective:
RFK Stadium was designed for both football and baseball, and is currently configured for soccer, which is very close to the football setup (minus the endzone seating, thanks to the MLB refitting ripping out a lot of seats). But the seating that's there now allows for ideal football sight lines, and the parking/transit situation is more ideal for the football set (e.g. tailgate parties).
Nationals Park was designed solely for baseball, and has terrible seating configuration for viewing anything other than baseball: the seats are canted toward the infield, the layout is asymmetric, etc. The parking situation is not conducive to tailgate parties, and the transit situation is not good for out-of-towners compared to RFK. Playing the bowl game at Nats Park makes as much sense as the Dodgers playing at LA Memorial Coliseum (which was reenacted this year - see this picture with the big-ass fence in a VERY short left field - awkward!).
So this decision makes a lot of sense: use the proper facility for the need, rather than try and drive a square peg (football game) into a round hole (baseball stadium)
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Anyone else notice polo being played on the Mall fields south of the Korean War Memorial? Wouldn't that really mess up the fields? And what do you do with all the horse poop?
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RFK is the much better place to hold a college bowl game...unlike Nats stadium, depending on ticket sales, they can only sell the lower bowl for RFK, which looks much better on TV, and should they sell lots and lots of tickets, RFK seats more people. The city gets the money from either stadium...it's not like they suddenly moved the game to FedEx....
Oh and they've been playing polo down on the Mall forever....
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Uhh GW used to have a football team and played at least at RFK way back in the 60s so this is NOT the first college game to be played in DC...Sorry
1961
The Colonials defeated V.M.I 30-6 in the Dedication game at D.C. Stadium (later R.F.K. Stadium), October 7. GW also played the first night game at the stadium on October 20th, as Washington, D.C. native Dick Drummond scored four touchdowns for the Colnials, equaling the Southern Conference record.
http://encyclopedia.gwu.edu/gwencyclopedia/index.php/Football
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The first BOWL GAME, Rukasu. Read carefully!
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duly noted
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Navy might draw some fans, but 9th place team in the ACC? I guess there's a pretty good chance that team could be Maryland. Maybe that's what they're hoping for. Not a chance this thing sells out RFK, though.
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Let’s look at it this way: Shiver in the cold with the rats and the pealing paint at RFK –or- shiver in new seats, better concessions, nice cooperate suites and a big ass tv at the Nats park...which one will sell more tickets to this horrible football game?
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One of the bowl games in Arizona started out at the Dbacks stadium and has been moved to Tempe now that the other one moved to Glendale.
There's still the bowl game in San Francisco played at their baseball stadium that features both team benches on the same sideline (on opposite sides of the 50)
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"Anyone else notice polo being played on the Mall fields south of the Korean War Memorial?"
Were there really? I've seen signs saying "Polo here on Saturdays" or something to that extent, but I've never actually seen polo played there. I googled it a while back and it looks like there was a polo team at one point, but it folded.
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I guess there's a pretty good chance that team could be Maryland.
In theory, but in practice, Maryland will be 2-10 and far from bowl eligible. They lost to Middle Tennessee State University last weekend. Virginia could be a possibility.
This bowl has disaster written all over it. I just feel bad for Navy.
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How many stadiums does DC have? We could probably use more. Maybe one for soccer. A place for basketball would be cool too!
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Just curious: where did you get the idea for this post?
Here, perhaps?
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jdland (is that really you?): looking at the first four words of this article, i would say the idea came from the washington business journal. now, where they got the idea from, i don't know, i'm not clicking through. but it would appear that dcist has given their source....