Who Sold Out — School Sales of Bowl Tickets

COMMODORES AND MIDSHIPMEN CONQUER ALLOTMENTS

According to Cornhusker fans, Nebraska has one of the most loyal and best traveling fan bases.  Fans of Big Red might be surprised to find out that for each of the last three years Vanderbilt, a school with fewer than 12,000 students and less football tradition, has sold at least three times as many bowl tickets as Nebraska.

Meanwhile, in The Buckeye State, the top bowl game draw was not The Best Damn Band in the Land or The team that had won 24 of 25, but a three-loss team from the MAC returning to the place it had played just three weeks earlier.   And among teams travelling to Florida, Louisville sold more tickets than any other team, including South Carolina, Iowa, Clemson, Ohio State, LSU, Nebraska, Georgia and Wisconsin.  An accomplishment that may be even more impressive is that the Naval Academy sold out its bowl allotment for the 10th consecutive time.  This year, Navy played in the Armed Forces Bowl in land-locked Fort Worth, Texas and sold out a 10,000 ticket allotment.

We mention some of these success stories that may seem unlikely, because in the near future, articles will start appearing that break down whether or not a particular school made a profit on its bowl game trip.   The articles will question the economics of bowl games, and whether or not playing in a bowl game makes sense for schools.   The articles will cite unsold tickets as the primary reason that schools lose money on bowl games.  There will be quotes from an athletic director from a school that fared poorly selling tickets, and blame directed at the bowl system for making the schools buy too many tickets.  Our purpose isn’t to belittle Ohio State, but to take a look and try to understand how 10-3 Bowling Green was able to sell more tickets to the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl than 12-1 Ohio State did to the Orange Bowl. It might be because it is an easy drive from Wood County to Detroit, but I think there is more to it than that.  Bowling Green does something that no other school does, and that may have helped the Falcons bowl ticket sales take off.  Keep in mind that there may also be specific reasons that a school does not sell out a ticket allotment by choice, such as only making tickets available to donors of a certain level.

There are other bright spots.   When you review the table below, you’ll see the notice by how much Louisville was able to outsell schools like Wisconsin, Nebraska and Georgia that also traveled to Florida.  That may seem like a surprise because it is a smaller school, from what’s perceived as a lesser conference,and also has a long drive, but selling more tickets was in the Cards this year.  It may be due to a few things that Louisville does that other schools don’t, that might make a fan want to buy tickets from the school, rather than other sources.  In the next few months, we’ll be researching and sharing those things with you.

Going forward, the bowls listened to athletic directors and conference officials, and ticket allotments will be dropping at most bowl games next year.  For example, games that are in the College Football Playoff will have ticket allotments of 12,500 per school, down from at least 17,500.  Several other bowls are seeing allotments drop to what seems to be an average of about 6,000 tickets per school.   In the next few months, we’ll be taking a closer look at ticket allotments, and historical sales.  We’ll share the best practices from several schools and we’ll be talking to secondary market sellers, athletic department officials, and bowl executives to let you know what they think will happen in the years to come.

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Team	Game	Allotment	Sold
Auburn	BCS	20,200	20,200
Florida State	BCS	20,200	20,200
Michigan State	BCS Rose Bowl	24,000	24,000
Stanford	BCS Rose Bowl	24,000	24,000
Ohio State	BCS Orange Bowl	17,500	7,000
Clemson	BCS Orange Bowl	17,500	8,750
UCF	BCS Fiesta	17,500	7,500
Baylor	BCS Fiesta	17,500	12,000
Alabama	BCS Sugar	17,500	19,500
Oklahoma	BCS Sugar	17,500
Oregon	Alamo Bowl	9,500	9,500
Texas	Alamo Bowl	9,500	9,500
Rutgers	Pinstripe Bowl	10,440	10,440
Notre Dame	Pinstripe Bowl	10,440	10,440
Bowling Green	Pizza Bowl	10,000	10,000
Missouri	Cotton	13,500	13,500
Oklahoma State	Cotton	13,500	13,500
Ole Miss	Music City	12,000	13,438
Mississippi State	Liberty	12,000	16,560
Vanderbilt	BB&T Compass	10,000	13,000
Louisville	Russell Athletic	12,500	11,500
North Carolina	Belk	12,500	7,000
Fresno State	Royal Purple Las Vegas	11,000	8,900
South Carolina	Capital One	12,500	11,000
Wisconsin	Capital One	12,500	3,800
LSU	Outback	12,000	6,000
Iowa	Outback	11,500	10,000
Georgia	Gator	15,000	7,500
Nebraska	Gator	12,500	2,759
Kansas State	BW-3	11,000	6,000
Michigan	BW-3	11,000	5,600
Minnesota	Texas	12,000	3,375
Utah State	Poinsettia Bowl	3,000	1,989
Northern Illinois	Poinsettia Bowl	3,000	1,200
Colorado State	New Mexico Bowl		5,105
San Diego State	Famous Idaho Potato	8,000	2,500

Numbers gathered from several sources, and will be updated or confirmed
with additional bowl games added in a future post.

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