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UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Printable Version

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UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - GoodGrief - 12-16-2010

http://blogs.courier-journal.com/ericcrawford/2010/12/16/uconn-fiesta-bowl-fiasco-2-5-m-in-unsold-tickets/

uconn has sold 4000 of its 17,000 fiesta bowl tix and is on the hook for $2.5 million in unsold tickets. maybe this is why a crappy team shouldn\'t play in a bcs bowl, especially one 3000 miles away.

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - fullmetal - 12-16-2010

It\'ll be interesting to see if there\'s any financial upside to UConn\'s bowl berth.    Recruiting prestige (after getting curbstomped)?  Alumni relations?  Riiiiight.

If not for the extra practice time, maybe they should have stayed home.  Heck of a Christmas white elephant gift.

Guys, this CAN\'T be good for Stanford - Redrum - 12-16-2010

The evidence against UConn only strengthens the case against schools that "Don\'t Travel Well."   We\'ve already been tried, convicted, stereotyped  and had " We are Stanford and we Don\'t Travel Well" put on all Athletic Dept. letterhead stationery.   The knock on UConn will jolt us as well and the shrapnel might hit other (smallish) schools as well.  Ain\'t fair, but there it is

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - fullmetal - 12-16-2010

What are the current Orange Bowl numbers?

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - 82lsju - 12-16-2010

looks like this is not new to the Fiesta Bowl as in 2008 it looks like WVU ate 7,000 Fiesta bowl tickets

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls07/news/story?id=3171541

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - washingtonismoney - 12-16-2010

Well, if we sell well, we might well be off of the list. Or get probationary status or something. Last I heard we\'d sold 8k tickets in the first 24 hrs: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/article_4f66e6c6-13c6-5688-a98c-e3d1f722ef29.html

(Apparently Tech is struggling--we sold more tickets in 24 hrs than they have as of a couple of days ago: http://www.gobblercountry.com/2010/12/14/1877209/2011-orange-bowl-virginia-techs-ticket-sales-lagging)

Hard to separate Fla. winter price hikes from... - Redrum - 12-16-2010

Orange Bowl gouging.   Orbitz was quoting a car service with $85 one way from Fort Lauderdale airport to Miami Beach.   So you think:  rent a car...except the hotel is going to whack us for $40/day parking.  

Hard to figure Va. Tech sales.  The only bowl closer to Va. Tech would be the Nashville Music City Bowl  or maybe something in Orlando,  the Only Thing In Orlando That Isn\'t Disney Bowl.   Maybe they\'ll finish strong.  But,  I\'m afraid that the lesson drawn from low Va. Tech turnout will simply be: "This is what happens when you match two teams that don\'t travel well."   Damned if we do, damned if we don\'t.

Re: Hard to separate Fla. winter price hikes from. - CowboyIndian - 12-16-2010

Quote:Hard to figure Va. Tech sales.  
It may have a lot to do with their having been to the Orange Bowl, what, 3 of the last 4 years?

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - GoodGrief - 12-16-2010

from this article about VT\'s trouble selling Orange Bowl tix. i\'m infuriated at the Orange Bowl\'s smugness about the situation. They keep the best tickets to themselves and force the schools to eat the cost of their allotted, unsold, less desirable tickets. Then they claim that they wouldn\'t want to shortchange schools by allotting them fewer tickets. As if there is no other solution in the world that could possibly exist.

Other than of course, you know, giving the schools better seats and not forcing them to eat the cost of unsold tickets.

http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2010/12/tech-may-lose-money-again-orange-bowl
----
The problem isn\'t only pricing. Fans can often get better seats through the secondary market - or directly through the bowl\'s ticket office. Weaver said bowl games keep the majority of the best seats to sell.

The Orange Bowl has sold roughly 30,000 tickets to the game, in addition to the 35,000 tickets for which Virginia Tech and Stanford are on the hook. Many of the schools\' allotted tickets are for seats in the upper deck, corners and end zones of Sun Life Stadium, while the bowl is selling a larger number of lower-level and sideline seats.

"That is an issue that I and my colleagues, other athletic directors, have been fighting for the last couple of years," Weaver said. "We could sell more of our tickets if we had better tickets to sell."

It\'s a system that seems set up to guarantee the bowl a profit while putting the schools - for whom the game is supposed to be a reward - at risk of losing money.

"I don\'t know if that\'s necessarily true," said Larry Wahl, the Orange Bowl\'s vice president of communication. "Historically, schools have sold their allotments no matter where the locations were."

But those were games featuring two traditional powers with strong traveling fan bases. The Orange Bowl from 2003 to 2006 featured match-ups of Southern Cal-Iowa, Miami-Florida State, Southern Cal-Oklahoma, and Florida State-Penn State.

Since then, the game has hosted Wake Forest-Louisville, Virginia Tech-Kansas, Virginia Tech-Cincinnati and Georgia Tech-Iowa. In all those games, at least one team brought a relatively small crowd. That means scalpers who buy tickets to big events months in advance, hoping to make a profit on a high-demand game, end up dumping them cheap online.

Which in turn means schools such as Virginia Tech get stuck with a big bill.

So why force the schools to buy such a large number and eat the cost if they go unsold? Is that really a reward for a great season?

"Again, historically you\'ve had sold-out bowls and the schools couldn\'t get enough seats," Wahl said. "If we sold 45,000 ourselves and only had 12,000 for the teams, then somebody would complain that you didn\'t hold enough back for the schools."

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - fullmetal - 12-17-2010

Quote:Oklahoma was well short of selling its allotment earlier this week and UConn was even worse, with only about 4,000 tickets sold.

The BCS really put OU on the rack with a bad opponent.  I don\'t want to hear the media talking about how well schools\' fan bases travel from storied programs.

Article here.

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - GoodGrief - 12-18-2010

A common problem with these bowls financially is that the school has to eat the cost of the unpurchased tickets. The bowl payout might offset that cost, but the payout gets distributed equally among all the members of that team\'s conference, so ultimately the school may wind up losing a lot of money by going to the bowl.

Why doesn\'t the conference first use the payout to offset the financial ticket losses that the school sustains and then distribute the remaining amount equally among the other conference schools? Just seems like common sense to not punish a team for earning money for the rest of the conference.

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Mick - 12-18-2010

Quote:Interestingly, I talked to a friend of mine Friday who\'s Virginia Tech alum. He predicts that Virginia Tech fans will show up in large numbers, nothwithstanding the early sales figures indicating the contrary. He said that they\'ve been here so often the past few years that fans know they can pick up better prices on better tickets by waiting until late, then buying from Stub Hub or other scalper sites.
So the problem still exists...fans not buying tickets from the school.

As Beach Boys sang: Be true to your school - Redrum - 12-18-2010

Most of the discussion I\'ve seen about tickets had one thing underlying theme:  people knew that at a matchup like Stanford/ Va  Tech,  free market (guess that should be "free market")  prices might be better, have better seats on offer, or both.   Lots of people seemed to say that helping Stanford sell its ticket alotment was just part of being all-in for Stanford football.  

The biggest complaint I\'ve read is season ticket holders and season ticket holders who are also donors  being assigned end zone seats.  Hard to know whether they limited themselves by stating lower price limits/ preferences or whether it really is a low-on-the-totem- pole issue.  On the Bootleg several people complained and  were counseled that this simply must be a some stupid mistake and they should contact Stanford to complain.   No idea if this will be productive.  Great irony if the best season ever for Stanford football poisons the well with supporters who people who supported it even through the crummy years.



Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Spiny_Norman - 12-18-2010

Redrum, from the article above that GG referenced:

Quote:Many of the schools\' allotted tickets are for seats in the upper deck, corners and end zones of Sun Life Stadium, while the bowl is selling a larger number of lower-level and sideline seats.

The donors/season ticket holders are likely receiving tickets that are as good as can be within the Stanford allotment.  If people want to complain, they should take their beef to the Orange Bowl organizers.

Did we have this problem w/ Sun Bowl? - Redrum - 12-18-2010

Maybe so few people went we didn\'t push up against alotment constraints.

I agree w/ previous postings about the Orange Bowl (maybe all bowls) carving from both ends of the salami,  demanding sales guarantees while working to undermine the market.  Heads they win, tails you lose.   It\'s good to be king.

I wasn\'t holding Stanford responsible for their anger,  just reporting that anger was out there.






Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - fullmetal - 12-19-2010

The student/young alumni tickets are squeezed to the top row of the upper tier.  That\'s kind of ridiculous :(  And for that, I\'d definitely pay $225 for a midfield, lower-tier seat, but those weren\'t made available to the public (probably for understandable reasons).

I wonder if I can get a press pass and photograph the game instead.

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - washingtonismoney - 12-21-2010

A post-note to the bowl-tickets debate: Oregon students are apparently being screwed:
http://www.studentfreepress.net/archives/5444



Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Farm93 - 12-21-2010

Quote:A post-note to the bowl-tickets debate: Oregon students are apparently being screwed:
http://www.studentfreepress.net/archives/5444

Well sure.  I can\'t remember the last time I watched that BCS NCG and remember getting any shots of a student section.  So either the students have always been up in the Sky Tier type levels, or the BCS NCGs have not even had student sections.

I can\'t help but chuckle as everyone gripes about these bowls.  All of these things are decades in the making, and yet the posts on these boards act as if they just started happening.

The bowls are not a playoff system.  They select schools based on revenue maximization.  The BCS rules are designed to keep the US Gov\'t away.  If the Rule of 4 did not apply - Michigan State or LSU would be in the Orange Bowl.   If the AQs did not get automatic bids, Connecticut would not be in the Fiesta.  If the non-AQ rule was not in play Stanford MIGHT be in the Rose Bowl, but TCU would almost certainly not be in that bowl.

As long as the bowls have sponsors paying the bills and filling the stands, the bowls do not care about doing right by the alums and students.  The Orange Bowl has a new main sponsor - Discover Card.  And as long as Discover is happy and paying big money all is fine.  Stanford will not be there next year, but Discover will.  So pleasing the sponsor is far more important than pleasing Stanford or the Pac-10.

Same logic applies to Oregon and Auburn with the NCG.

The ADs, coaches and players don\'t really love going to Mobile, El Paso, Detroit, San Francisco or Boise.  It is all about the extra practice time and the team building that comes from the physical multi-day trip.  Most programs see a bowl game as a way to position themselves favorably for next year\'s preseason rankings and the recruiting trail.

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Leftcoast - 12-21-2010

I think you might be underplaying a Bowl Game\'s attraction to the team Farm93.

Sure the extra practice and hype are seen as worthwhile but this year\'s team is absolutely excited about the spotlight of playing in a BCS bowl with a national audience watching in a Bowl venue they\'ve actually heard of and watched previously.  Stanford\'s not done this enough for ennui to set in.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with some of this year\'s staff and the team is working hard .... and excited.

(Edit to correct Farm93\'s name - had it as Farm94.  Whoops.)

Re: UConn owes $2.5 million in unsold Fiesta tix - Farm93 - 12-21-2010

Oh I think the Stanford team is working hard.  And the bowl game winner is normally the team that views the bowl as a good opportunity.  In that regard, I can\'t imagine that V-Tech is as excited or as eager as Stanford.  V-Tech has been to the Orange Bowl 3 of the last 4 years, so the suburban Miami thing has got to be getting old.  Advantage: Stanford

However, almost all programs in non-BCS NCG games see the game as a vehicle to future opportunities.  For the coaches, players, and player families the bowl MIGHT serve as a reward too, but for the program the bowl is a vehicle.

A vehicle to national exposure, a vehicle for future year season ticket sales, a vehicle for extra practice time, a vehicle for team building, a vehicle for better preseason positioning, a vehicle for recruiting, a vehicle for coach retention, etc.

And once viewed that way, it is easier to understand the bowl organizer motivations.  Everyone is using and abusing each other.  No one is really evil or pure.
The sponsors want cheap product placements on TV.
The bowls organizers want a highly rated show in front of a big audience.
The program wants to get bigger and stronger
And the conferences want money

A few disgruntled students, likely unwilling to pay big money, are not the worry of the powers in this BCS system.