Ring In The New Year: Liberty Bowl Moving Date To January 2
The AutoZone Liberty Bowl will play its 50th anniversary game January 2, 2009, at 4:00pm CT, marking the "first time in the bowl's history that the game will be played in January," according to Ron Higgins of the Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL. The game has been played on December 31 10 times, "including eight of the last 10 years." ESPN will televise the game for the 19th consecutive year in between Fox' coverage of the AT&T Cotton Bowl at 2:00pm ET and the Allstate Sugar Bowl at 8:20pm ET. All three games have tie-ins with the SEC, and ESPN VP/Programming & Acquisitions Dave Brown said, "It makes it an SEC day for 10 hours on that Friday, and I love it." Brown: "More than any other conference, SEC fans are tuned in to see how the other guy is doing, whether they are rooting for them or not." Higgins notes the Liberty Bowl drew the largest crowd (63,816) in its history for Mississippi State-Central Florida (63,816) last year, when the game was played on Saturday, December 29. But Brown said, "When Friday Jan. 2 pops open once every seven years (because of Leap Year), it's an official holiday. Everybody is off, and from a ratings perspective it really works well. At a time when the [bowl] is coming off a 4-plus rating, we thought Jan. 2 would be another great opportunity to knock out a big rating." AutoZone Liberty Bowl Exec Dir Steve Ehrhart said that he "considered Dec. 27 and Jan. 3 as other dates, but Dec. 27 is too close to Christmas and Jan. 3 is an NFL playoff date in the upcoming season" (Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL, 4/23).
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