Prime Time meets party time as Colorado soaks up the spotlight
-
Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
BOULDER, Colo. — Just as the sun peeked over the horizon, the line to get into The Sink started to form. By 6:45 a.m., roughly 100 people were wrapped around the block, waiting for the iconic 100-year-old bar and restaurant to open its doors for what promised to be a historic day.
“There hasn’t been this much energy here in 25 years,” said Mark Heinritz, who took ownership of the beloved Boulder institution in 1992.
As fans waited outside, some traded undergraduate stories. Others heckled red-clad Nebraska fans. Mostly, though, they shared their amazement of the moment. Less than a year after Colorado finished one of the worst seasons by a Power 5 football team in the last few decades, there was a palpable predawn buzz for the Buffaloes’ home opener under coach Deion Sanders.
“We bought [The Sink] two years off the national championship and it was intense,” Heinritz said. “People showed up right off the bat; they’re ready to go. They would get up on a Saturday, we would fill right up and be busy all day. And through, let’s call them the hard years, that dissipated quite a bit.”
For now, those days are over.
Even for an establishment like The Sink, which is so engrained in the local community that it has an exhibit at the Museum of Boulder, Saturday was special. This is a place that has been featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and “Man vs. Food,” and welcomed the likes of Anthony Bourdain and President Barack Obama. But those visitors didn’t necessitate Heinritz opening four hours early to serve breakfast beers.
By 7:20 a.m., the place was so crowded they had to briefly stop letting people in, and inside it might as well have been 2 p.m., as servers deftly navigated the standing-room-only bar area, carrying trays of shots and pizzas.
“I tell you what,” Heinritz said. “The [athletic director] makes one of the most important economic decisions for the city of Boulder. It’s night and day between Deion Sanders’ potential and a 1-11 team. Night and day. The restaurant’s sales are incredible. We’ll go from just having some extra business on a Saturday to where we’ll actually get business Friday and Sunday. It turns into a three-day deal.”
The Prime effect has been felt all over town. On Pearl Street, Boulder’s eclectic brick-paved downtown strip, all kinds of shops and restaurants have bought into the craze. One clothing store offered a 21% discount on a single item, as an homage to Sanders’ number in the NFL. Prime Time merch is everywhere.
All of that came without a ball being snapped at Folsom Field.
When the gates opened two hours prior to kickoff, thousands of students burst through like they were trying to escape from Ralphie, the Buffaloes’ live mascot, and ran to claim the best seats possible. As the stadium filled with 53,241 people — the largest crowd in Boulder in 15 years — there was an anticipatory intensity that exists only before truly meaningful games in college football.
“It was phenomenal just feeling the energy of the student body as well as the fan base here,” Sanders said. “It was unbelievable. That was my first time. We didn’t get to really feel it in the spring because there was snow. I didn’t want to go out there. It was cold. So, I really didn’t get to feel it. But we felt it today.”
Had this game been played in Boulder a year ago, there would have been a real risk — maybe even an expectation — the stands would have been overrun by red shirts. And while Nebraska fans still traveled well, their impact on the atmosphere was negligible.
“I’ve seen the pictures of red in the stands a couple years ago,” Buffs quarterback Shedeur Sanders said, referencing a recent Colorado-Nebraska game in Boulder. “I don’t know when that was, but I’ve seen that. This looked totally different. Our fans came out to support.”
New fans and old.
Since the spring, the school has been preparing for the parade of celebrities expected to make their way to Boulder this season. Saturday’s VIP list included the Wu Tang Clan, former NFL receivers Michael Irvin and Terrell Owens, rapper Cam’Ron, and Denver Nuggets players Peyton Watson and Collin Gillespie, among others. The athletic department set a record for media credentials distributed.
Everything that occurred before kickoff was a product of hype and hope. Hiring Sanders ensured the first part. His larger-than-life presence guaranteed the Buffs would be relevant again, but it would only stay that way if they started to win.
So far, so good.
Even on a day where the Buffs had plenty of sloppy moments they’ll want to get cleaned up, they had no trouble swatting away an overwhelmed Nebraska team, whose own first-year coach, Matt Rhule, signed an eight-year, $74 million contract in November.
The game’s outcome was determined long before the Cornhuskers scored a touchdown with one second left to make the final score 36-14. As the clock wound down on that final Nebraska drive, Colorado students forced their way to the lowest rows behind the south end zone, preparing to storm the field.
A call for them to remain off the field from the stadium’s PA system — at the request of Coach Prime, no less — had no impact, and before Nebraska could kick off to officially end the game, delirious students spilled over the barrier.
Another reminder from the PA announcer that the game was not over was equally ineffective, and with a second still on the clock, the officiating crew called it. Chaos ensued.
“I’ve never been on the field when it was stormed,” Sanders said.
And he didn’t get to experience much of this one, either, as his security detail quickly escorted him away. His son, however, wasn’t about to miss out this opportunity.
“This is my first time when somebody rushed the field, so I’m excited for it,” Shedeur Sanders said. “Then it was bittersweet. I started getting beat up in there. It looked fun, but I’m telling you, stay out of that. They tried to tell me, but with me being so hard-headed, I’m like, ‘Nah, I want to enjoy it.'”
Just like everyone else.
-
Shwetha Surendran
The NCAA sent a letter to Kalshi, a company that offers prediction markets on college basketball and football, expressing its concern about the company’s “commitment to contest integrity and the protection of contest participants,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by ESPN.
In the letter, dated Oct. 30, NCAA chief legal officer Scott Bearby asked Kalshi how it monitors collegiate sports markets for integrity concerns and activity by prohibited customers, who it considers a prohibited customer, whether it will report integrity concerns to the NCAA and whether the company will cooperate with NCAA investigations.
“We welcome Kalshi’s stance on its efforts to protect the integrity of NCAA competitions and to reduce instances of abuse and harassment directed at student-athletes and other participants,” Bearby wrote.
The NCAA also asked if Kalshi would ban prediction markets similar to prop bets, which the company began offering this fall.
Prop betting markets, Bearby noted in the letter, heighten “the risk of integrity and harassment concerns.” In March last year, NCAA president Charlie Baker called for a ban on prop bets on college athletes in states with legal sports wagering.
The NCAA also asked Kalshi in the letter to review language on its website that the NCAA says implies a relationship between them.
“Kalshi has robust market integrity provisions required by our status as a federally licensed financial exchange,” a Kalshi spokesperson said in a statement to ESPN. “We value the NCAA’s feedback and are working on adjusting the language on our site. We are currently reviewing and addressing their additional requests.”
Prediction markets like Kalshi have emerged over the past year and are competing with traditional sportsbooks in the betting market. Kalshi is battling multiple lawsuits by state gambling regulators, who allege that the company is violating state laws by offering event contracts that mimic sports bets. Kalshi argues that it does not fall under state jurisdiction and is instead regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency.
In March, Kalshi announced a partnership with IC360, an integrity monitor used by many collegiate and professional leagues.
The NCAA has faced an increasing number of alleged betting violations by players in recent years. In September, the NCAA announced that a Fresno State men’s basketball player had manipulated his performance for gambling purposes and conspired with two other players in a prop betting scheme. In total, the association has opened investigations into potential betting violations by approximately 30 current or former men’s basketball players.
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Miami has asked the Atlantic Coast Conference for clarity on a number of officiating decisions made in its loss this past weekend to SMU, including a critical 15-yard penalty in the final moments of regulation.
Miami lost the game, 26-20. The Hurricanes, who were as high as No. 2 in the AP Top 25 last month, have dropped two of their last three games and are now ranked No. 18.
Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said Miami has not gotten an answer from the ACC. It’s unclear if any explanations will be coming.
“Certainly, we’re waiting what the response is, as well as on the roughing the passer one which we certainly don’t agree with,” Cristobal said Monday. “But at this point in time, the best we can do is turn it in and hope for a better result next time.”
The Hurricanes’ Marquise Lightfoot was called for unnecessary roughness against SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings with about a minute left in the fourth quarter, giving the Mustangs 15 yards and a first down. Miami had called time out just before the fourth-and-9 play was snapped, and the Hurricanes argued to no avail that Lightfoot did not hear the whistle.
Replays showed that Lightfoot, who did make contact with Jennings, tried to hold the SMU quarterback up after apparently realizing the play was dead.
That penalty gave SMU the ball on the Miami 37, and the Mustangs went on to kick an overtime-forcing field goal.
Miami also was incensed about how a pass interference flag that would have aided the Hurricanes was picked up, and how officials missed a Hurricanes receiver getting tackled in the end zone on a play that wound up as a Miami interception in overtime.
Miami was called for 12 penalties in the game for 96 yards, compared with four by SMU for 40 yards. The eight-penalty differential tied Miami’s biggest of the season; it had 13 penalties compared with five by Florida State when those teams played in Tallahassee last month.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024