Fau Has Bought About 700 Tickets For The No Bowl

[SUMG]

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/...of-new-orleans/

[CorinthEagle]

Be sure and look for me on TV. In honor of TY Sports I'll be there dressed as "NT Douche".

Shouldn't be hard to spot me, I'll be the only person in the stands!

[KRAM1]

SAD...very SAD response from the FAU fan base. Do they even have a fan base????

[UNTflyer]

Can't really make much of argument for the Sun Belt to get a 2nd bowl game.

[BonfireBrian]

Very upsetting. New Orleans is a great destination for a bowl, and it doesn't make any sense how you can only sell 700 tickets.

[Cowtown]

"The record attendance for the bowl is 27,253 for the 2004 game between Southern Miss and North Texas. In 2003, Memphis and North Texas drew 25,184"

[NT80]

SAD...very SAD response from the FAU fan base. Do they even have a fan base????

No. Not a bad team, but neither FAU nor FIU have any fan support. Plus, this happens when you invite in conference schools 1500 miles away from the basic center of the conference.

Edited December 20, 2007 by NT80

[UNTFan23]

I hope FAU (and not the conference) is forced to eat whatever tickets they don't sell.

[SUMG]

I hope FAU (and not the conference) is forced to eat whatever tickets they don't sell.

Hope all you want, but according to the article: "Fortunately for FAU, participating New Orleans Bowl teams are not required to purchase the unsold portion of their ticket allotment."

I can't believe that the league and the bowl have that kind of agreement.

When 8,000 fans are at his conference's only bowl game....maybe Wright Waters will get a clue.

[DeepGreen]

No. Not a bad team, but neither FAU nor FIU have any fan support. Plus, this happens when you invite in conference schools 1500 miles away from the basic center of the conference.

And I will add that these schools just recently started there football programs, thus no history, no traditions.

[NT80]

» Sam Joffray, the New Orleans Bowl's vice president of communications, said

» Monday 29,000 tickets had been distributed for Friday's

» game.

What does "distributed" mean? Printed? Handed out on the street to anyone willing to come in? If they announce a bogus attendance of 29,000 I will really be disappointed.

[NT80]

And I will add that these schools just recently started there football programs, thus no history, no traditions.

It's football, surely these poor souls are familiar with the game? Maybe not. How much tradition does it take to have a 30,000 student campus and less than 5,000 total fans of anykind see a home game with Big 10 Minnesota? Celina high school could outdraw them!

[Green to the Bone]

» Sam Joffray, the New Orleans Bowl's vice president of communications, said

» Monday 29,000 tickets had been distributed for Friday's

» game.

What does "distributed" mean? Printed? Handed out on the street to anyone willing to come in? If they announce a bogus attendance of 29,000 I will really be disappointed.

You are astute. Many second- and third-tier bowl games hand out zillions of tickets to youth teams, corporate sponsors, glad-handers, hangers-on, the chamber of commerce, car dealers -- you get the picture. Anything to make the stands look somewhat less naked. It's hard to blame them. If you're the local organizer and you've worked your butt off to make the game a success, you don't want the thing to look like the economic flop that it might actually be. It's disheartening.

[DallasGreen]

No. Not a bad team, but neither FAU nor FIU have any fan support. Plus, this happens when you invite in conference schools 1500 miles away from the basic center of the conference.

And two teams that beat UNT's butt this year and are truly making progress to compete and have better facilities. No "field of dreams" from either.

[NT80]

You are astute. Many second- and third-tier bowl games hand out zillions of tickets to youth teams, corporate sponsors, glad-handers, hangers-on, the chamber of commerce, car dealers -- you get the picture. Anything to make the stands look somewhat less naked. It's hard to blame them. If you're the local organizer and you've worked your butt off to make the game a success, you don't want the thing to look like the economic flop that it might actually be. It's disheartening.

I'm sure they do hand out some at the last minute, but they don't advertise it as such, just reducing the cost to some groups:

http://neworleansbowl.com/2007/index.php?o...3&Itemid=33

[UNTLifer]

And two teams that beat UNT's butt this year and are truly making progress to compete and have better facilities. No "field of dreams" from either.

Please show me these wonderful facilities they are building. They can't draw flies to their games, so who's funding these projects.

Let's see, we've got a new AC and practice facility and a stadium on the way. What else do you want, Grinch?

[Green to the Bone]

I'm sure they do hand out some at the last minute, but they don't advertise it as such, just reducing the cost to some groups:

http://neworleansbowl.com/2007/index.php?o...3&Itemid=33

Yeah, I'd call that the "keeping up appearances" approach. Precious few of those special-deal group seats will be sold at any price, and in the end, many are basically given away. There may also be some NCAA rule on how deep the discount can be and have it still be called "paid attendance."

Part of the problem is having the NOB in a large venue. It takes 69,000 to 72,000 to fill the Superdome, depending on the configuration for a particular game. If they had it in a smaller place, say 40,000, the best crowds we drew there (25-27,000) would look pretty good. I only got to attend the first NOB, and gee, did it look empty.

Of course, if you're trying to make your 700 people seem like a crowd, you might want to have the game in the back banquet room at the Golden Corral. Lots of fried stuff and a nice salad bar to boot.

Edited December 20, 2007 by Green to the Bone

[Coffee and TV]

It's football, surely these poor souls are familiar with the game? Maybe not. How much tradition does it take to have a 30,000 student campus and less than 5,000 total fans of anykind see a home game with Big 10 Minnesota? Celina high school could outdraw them!

Its Miami, they have no fan support in anything but maybe the Dolphins.

[oldschoollefty]

Just curious, I noticed in the DMN that the payout for the NO Bowl was around $325,000 and the next lowest paying bowl was $750,000. Is the title sponsor so poverty stricken that our bowl pays HALF that of the next lowest. Good God, the WAC and CUSA's bowl tie ins pay better. Is this the best we (as a conference) can do?

Edited December 20, 2007 by oldschoollefty

[GreenEddieNT]

Just curious, I noticed in the DMN that the payout for the NO Bowl was around $325,000 and the next lowest paying bowl was $750,000. Is the title sponsor so poverty stricken that our bowl pays HALF that of the next lowest. Good God, the WAC and CUSA's bowl tie ins pay better. Is this the best we (as a conference) can do?

WAC and CUSA have better bowls because they have better fan support. Sun Belt schools can't even get fans into their own stadiums. When was the last time a Sun Belt team sold out its stadium? Never, and we're not even talking about big stadiums at the Sun Belt level. The average Sun Belt stadium seats 30K and they struggle to fill 2 thirds of that. Half the schools in the conference can't even put more than 15K in the seats. The bowls are well aware of this. They can cry and complain till the cows come home about getting only one bowl bid but as long as the Sun Belt can't have even one measly school average 25K in attendance(let alone 30 or 40K like some other non-bcs leagues) the bowls are not going to have enough confidence in us to offer us more tie-ins. Edited December 20, 2007 by GreenEddieNT

[res1dg16]

"Is this the best we (as a conference) can do? "

duh ... it's a sorry conference ... barely worthy of any bowls bids at all in any year

Edited December 20, 2007 by res1dg16

[UNTflyer]

Just curious, I noticed in the DMN that the payout for the NO Bowl was around $325,000 and the next lowest paying bowl was $750,000. Is the title sponsor so poverty stricken that our bowl pays HALF that of the next lowest. Good God, the WAC and CUSA's bowl tie ins pay better. Is this the best we (as a conference) can do?

Umm, yeah especially when you get news of the kind in this article.

Get us OUT of the Belt!

[keith]

Unless you are playing in one of the BCS bowls, I'm not sure the "payout" is the most important consideration for the schools. Perhaps someone on here with better knowledge can fill us in on what the "payout" involves, but I seriously doubt we are talking cold hard cash here.

Also FWIW, in 2006 the New Orleans Bowl was not the lowest in payout. It was the Humanitarian Bowl and that paid out $250,000. Then it was the PapaJohns.com Bowl and that paid $300,000. The NO Bowl was the third lowest at $325,000. Next in line was the Hawaii Bowl at $398,000, Armed Forces Bowl at $600,000 then several at the $750,000 level. For some reason the Texas Bowl had a split payout. The Big East got $500,000 and the Big 12 got $750,000.

Keith

[Shof]

WAC and CUSA have better bowls because they have better fan support. Sun Belt schools can't even get fans into their own stadiums. When was the last time a Sun Belt team sold out its stadium?

Well since you asked, this year in Lafayette. Little over 33K in a 31 stadium for Cajuns vs McNeese. Granted this was a "nostalgia game" of sorts; but a great crowd nonetheless.

Shof

[Guest 97and03]

Anyone know how many tickets UNT fans bought during our NO Bowl years??