SU Abroad students hunt for places to watch the Final Four games
Courtesy of SU Photo + Imaging Center
After a huge upset in the Elite Eight game against the University of Virginia this past weekend, Syracuse University is buzzing with excitement, and that applies to more than the main campus. Many SU Abroad students are going to extremes to watch the Final Four game this coming weekend.
Junior information management and technology major Seth Singer is studying abroad in Hong Kong and missed the Sweet 16 game while he was on a trip in Bali with his parents.
“Extremely jealous does not begin to describe how it feels to be missing it,” Singer said. “To get this far and not be able to join friends at Castle was heartbreaking.”
But Singer won’t let that miss happen again — he said he’ll definitely be catching the Final Four game this weekend.
The game airs at 8:49 p.m. EST, which means that in order for students in Hong Kong to watch the game live, they’ll have to tune in at 8:49 in the morning. With these odd times, none of the abroad centers are planning an official screening for the games. So students are figuring out how to watch it on their own.
Singer can watch the game in the morning in Hong Kong since it airs over the weekend and won’t interfere with class. He would prefer to watch the game at a bar, so he sent emails to bars in the neighborhood asking for them to screen it, and encouraged other SU students in Hong Kong to do the same.
He also has a backup plan in case he can’t find the game at any Hong Kong bars. He’ll simply connect a computer to his TV, just as he did to watch the Super Bowl.
Despite difficulties with times zones and streaming, SU students all over the world are trying to find out how to watch while abroad.
Not everyone knows how to stream from outside the U.S. like Singer does. Sydney, a junior communications design major, is currently studying at the SU London center. She got to watch the Elite Eight game after searching long and hard for a bar that would screen it for her and her friends.
I spent all day Sunday trying to find a bar that was open late enough, because we’re five hours ahead. It was also Easter, which is a lot bigger of a holiday in Europe than it is at home, so a lot of places were closed.Sydney Hirsh
She finally found an American bar and made a reservation on its website. The bar screened the game on a projector and reserved a few large tables for the students. Hirsh invited 11 students to come with her and was texting updates constantly to her other friends — who were in Wales and couldn’t watch — and trying to add more voices to the excitement.
“The more people there are cheering the team on, the more fun it is,” she said.
Hirsh will not be able to watch the Final Four game this weekend because she is travelling to Switzerland with her parents and does not know how to stream from outside the U.S.
Michael Altamuro, a junior finance and accounting dual major, is studying abroad at the SU Madrid center and considers himself a “die-hard fan.” Luckily, he said, he found a bar in Madrid where he and other SU students can go and watch the game. Of course, they have to watch it at 2:49 a.m., but that’s no problem for Altamuro and his peers abroad, he added.
“The people who I watched the Elite Eight game with were going just as crazy as people probably were going in ‘Cuse when we made the comeback against Virginia,” Altamuro said in an email. “Obviously I would love to be back home with all of my friends watching it, but no matter here or there all I want to see is Syracuse win.”
Published on March 31, 2016 at 8:41 pm
Contact Hayley at hagreaso@syr.edu
