Posted on: Tuesday, December 25, 2001
Bowl games struggling to put fans in stands
By Pete Coates
Bloomberg News Service
SEATTLE — Seattle officials envisioned a stadium filled with college football fans when they lured the O'ahu Bowl away from Hawai'i in April.
However, Safeco Field may be half-empty for Thursday's inaugural Seattle Bowl between Stanford and Georgia Tech because of circumstances they never anticipated.
With people reluctant to fly following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, and the U.S. economy mired in recession, many bowls are struggling to attract out-of-town fans.
"People are a little hesitant to travel," said Rob Sullivan, public and community relations manager for the Seattle Bowl. "Combined with the economy, this isn't the best of years to be putting on an event, especially your first one."
While the four Bowl Championship Series games (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta and Rose) are already sold out, many of the other 21 postseason games are struggling to draw fans.
Last week's inaugural New Orleans Bowl between Colorado State and North Texas drew 18,898 fans to the 72,000-seat Superdome.
Safeco Field, home of baseball's Seattle Mariners, has been reconfigured for football and can accommodate 45,000 fans for the Seattle Bowl. Officials only expect about 25,000 to attend the game, though.
The crowd would be much bigger if the hometown University of Washington Huskies or nearby Pacific-10 rivals Washington State or Oregon were playing in the game. But the Seattle Bowl only had the fourth pick from the Pac-10 and had to settle for Stanford.
Although Stanford is 9-2 and ranked ninth by the BCS, the campus is 800 miles from Seattle, which means most of its fans have to fly to the game.
"That's the big thing right now — the hassle of going through airport security, in addition to the uneasiness of travel these days," Sullivan said. "It's definitely a concern, but hopefully we'll be able to get them over that fear and get them up here."
Scott Ramsey, executive director of the Music City Bowl in Nashville, said the only reason Friday's game will probably match last year's crowd of 47,000 is because University of Georgia fans will be able to make the 300-mile drive in one day.
Ramsey said Georgia's opponent, Boston College, won't come close to selling the 12,000 tickets it was required to purchase when it accepted the bowl invitation.
"It's unrealistic to expect large numbers of people to get on airplanes this year," he said. "It's just the general tone of the country right now."
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, passenger traffic on most major U.S. airlines has fallen 20 to 25 percent from last year.
Michael Seibert, president of QuinWell Travel Service in Wellsley, Massachusetts, said he'll only sell about 250 travel packages to Boston College fans heading to Nashville.
He sold about 600 packages when Boston College went to the Insight.com Bowl in Tucson, Arizona, two years ago.
"It was a different environment two years ago," Siebert said. "The economy was a lot more stable back then and there was no Osama bin Laden running around creating havoc, either."
At Clemson, fans have been slow to buy tickets to watch the Tigers play Louisiana Tech in Monday's Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho.
Although the Tigers averaged more than 80,000 at home games this year, Humanitarian Bowl Executive Director Gary Beck said he only expects about 3,000 Clemson fans to make the trip. He said about 1,000 Louisiana Tech fans will attend the game.
"Some folks are still a little leery about flying, which is very understandable," said Clemson ticket manager Van Hilderbrand, who estimated it would take about 32 hours to make the 2,300-mile drive from South Carolina to Boise. "A driving bowl would have been better for everyone this year."
Some of the unsold tickets that are sent back by Clemson and Louisiana Tech will be donated to people who have no fear of flying — the Air National Guard at Gowen Field and pilots at Mountain Home Air Force Base near Boise.
Brad Cilley, president and general manager of Northwest Travel Inc. in Seattle, said he planned to sell 800 travel packages to University of Washington fans for the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.
After three weeks of slow sales, he's now hoping to sell half that many for Friday's game against Texas.
Cilley said the sagging Seattle economy is as much to blame as the concern over flying. Aircraft maker Boeing Co., the region's biggest employer, has eliminated 7,000 jobs in the area since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I think San Diego is a great destination for a bowl," Cilley said. "But people are worrying if they're going to have a job six months from now."
