Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
ROFL. What an absolute joke and mess the Force are. Glad I work for the Drive which actually know how to run an operation. The Carolina Force...I mean Farce get the FAIL stamp of approval. This was posted by Wolfgame on Urbanplanet:
What a mess.....you would think that bringing a team to Greenville would result in adequate preparation. I was really disappointed with the opening night. I understand that this was a new deal.....but it was amateur night at the Bi-Lo.
1) The game started an hour and a half late. I think this was due to not having "turf" behind the end zone. They were scrambling to get something down and managed to get pad and turf down behind one end zone and had to settle for padding only behind the other end zone, so the game could start before 8:30 (7:00 ticket start time). They brought turf to replace grey padding in the other end zone at half time. Did anyone read the rule book and understand that they had to have this for game time? I am sure the officials told them at the last minute and I am sure Lowes or Home Depot sold them turf at the last minute.
2) Announcing the teams: "Are You ready For Your Carolina Greenville DRIVE?.....I mean Force?" Really, that happened.
3) Announcing #2: A couple of ticket holders from section 216 will be given the best seats in the house, courtesy of Massage Envy. If anyone wants to send a "Message"..."Message Envy" is a sponsor......Message vs. Massage? Sure they were thrilled with that endorsement...everyone laughed.
4) Half time: Cheerleaders line up and are waiting for the music...and wait...and wait...and wait. Eventually they give up and run off the field.
5) The first 5 minutes of the game were penalties....it was part the fault of the teams and not being ready, but the refs should have not been so tight on game 1, drive 1....and bring some excitement.
6) The end zones say "Wranglers"...you could clearly see that they tried to cover up Austin....but it was clear we inherited turf. Can we not cover that up and get some pride?
I wish that those in charge would have held a scrimmage to check all of this out, before opening night. The stands were pretty full on the second tier, but empty on the first tier. This was an opportunity to bring an event to Greenville...and whoever is in charge failed big time.
Had it run like clockwork (which it should have)....they could have built a fan base. Personally, I would have taken one more step beyond the "buy one get one free offer" they had and made it free for the first game..or cheap general admission. Fill Bi-Lo and make money off of concessions...have everything ironed out...start on time and tell the officials to take a chill pill.
Unfortunately, they had many mistakes, started an hour and a half late and it was run like a middle school football game.
The actual football could be entertaining......and was if you could get into it. Unfortunately, they made it way to easy to be distracted. We left early in the 4th quarter because it was so late...and 50%+ had already left before us.
Opportunity strikes once...they will need to make it strike twice to have the Carolina Force something that lasts in Greenville.
If anyone wants suggestions on how to make this work.
1) Buy advertising and make Game #2 Free....or cheap and general admission. Fill the stands.
2) Run to a schedule and iron out the kinks before. Start on time, get names on uniforms so "fans" can start to know who they are cheering for and get the cheerleaders in the stands. Standing in the tunnel does not do anything.
3) Get rid of "Wranglers" in the end zone....you could see this turf was inherited from the "Austin Wranglers"....spend the money up front and get it right.
4) Work with sponsors and local businesses to get players out in the public during the week. This is a small town and it should be easy to build a fan base...but you have to get personal to do it. High Schools, Sponsors Businesses, City Events....was any of this thought of?
I could go on and on......much more work to do here....hopefully it happens and we get a good team here that we can build some excitement around it. It appeared that this whole thing was put together by people who were doing so after their "real jobs".
Hope it works out...but whoever is in charge will need to re-group ASAP to make that happen.
I agree 100%. We could not believe how many errors they made during it, and we could not help but to leave at half-time. I was really hoping that they would have had any kinks fixed by kick-off, but once he introduced the CAROLINAFORCE as the GREENVILLE DRIVE, I knew it was going to be a long season. Hopefully they can get their act together by the time the next home game comes around.
All of this is true. I was there. I hope they get the details ironed out, because I love football in every way! I will go back on April 11 to see if things have ironed out. Let me also add that the person beside me at the ticket booth had will call tickets. When he got there they had sold half of them to someone else. He was pissed and told the lady how unorganized things were.
Football fans are an interesting lot. If you notice, even with all the errors, both the person quoted from urbanplanet and motonenterprises from this board said they hope it gets better and my guess is they will give them another chance by buying another ticket. Some people will not go back but many will and will bring their friends. As we are big Dolfans down here in South Florida and by Spring my hubby and son are seriously jonesing for football, my guess is it's probably the same for football fans up there. I'm sure we'll be attending some games next year (if they're still around). Unfortunately, we won't be moving up until the first week in June so we'll miss this year.
It was fun and funny, I went with my wife and my parents who were in town, we had fun laughing at the mistakes and watching the game as well, I fully enjoyed myself and so did my parents.
After the team got settled down a bit they we'ren't bad(I was actually more unimpressed by bubba diggs(coach) than anyone, he just walked around looking angry all game, not doing much of anything).
Personally I've been through this once already, I went to the first game of the first season of another minor league football team in my former hometown, and they had just as many mistakes and problems their first game, so I was well aware of what could go wrong. That team has grown exponentially over the past two years and is filling the blue cross arena in Rochester NY(10,000 capacity) and winning championships.
So it can be fixed, they just have to do it right, marketing and advertising is the first step in my opinion.
Also, the announcer was mediocre and they need to have the Refs micd up, these are all things that are easily fixed though, it just takes a game or two.
Seeing how it was the first game, i'll give this team a second chance to fix their mistakes. I noticed in the WYFF newscast that they had sponsors I wasn't aware of like Ruth's Chris and WLOS. The one thing they need to improve on badly is their website. It doesn't even list most of the sponsors they have.
Football fans are an interesting lot. If you notice, even with all the errors, both the person quoted from urbanplanet and motonenterprises from this board said they hope it gets better and my guess is they will give them another chance by buying another ticket. Some people will not go back but many will and will bring their friends. As we are big Dolfans down here in South Florida and by Spring my hubby and son are seriously jonesing for football, my guess is it's probably the same for football fans up there. I'm sure we'll be attending some games next year (if they're still around). Unfortunately, we won't be moving up until the first week in June so we'll miss this year.
I absolutely love football more than any other sport, so they probably couldn't do much to keep me from coming. I actually grew up and played high school ball with one of the players. I hope they succeed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm not going to complain about the Greenville Drive error though. More free publicity for us. 
If you notice, even with all the errors, both the person quoted from urbanplanet and motonenterprises from this board said they hope it gets better and my guess is they will give them another chance by buying another ticket. Some people will not go back but many will and will bring their friends. As we are big Dolfans down here in South Florida and by Spring my hubby and son are seriously jonesing for football, my guess is it's probably the same for football fans up there. I'm sure we'll be attending some games next year (if they're still around). Unfortunately, we won't be moving up until the first week in June so we'll miss this year.
