Orange Bowl Seeing Lackluster Ticket Demand Ahead Of Tonight's Game

Lackluster demand for tonight’s Discover Orange Bowl featuring Clemson and West Virginia has “once again left scalpers with plenty of seats at SunLife Stadium,” according to Douglas Hanks of the MIAMI HERALD. On StubHub.com, seats were “selling for as little as $11” yesterday afternoon. StubHub PR Manager Joellen Ferrer said that ticket prices are “roughly where they were last year but are off about 45 percent from 2010, when Iowa took on Georgia Tech.” At the official “resale board on the Orange Bowl’s homepage, the prime seats on the 50-yard line could be had for less than $300.” Hanks notes a number of factors “are making this even more of a buyer’s market for Orange Bowl tickets.” A weak economy has fans across the country “thinking twice before they spend thousands of dollars to see their alma maters play in a game that brings bragging rights but no national title.” The midweek kickoff also “makes it harder for people to make a long weekend out of a trip to the game, as they could for last year’s Monday-night Orange Bowl.” Probably “most importantly, Clemson and West Virginia don’t have the deep and devoted fan bases of past Orange Bowl stand-outs.” Hanks notes neither team has “sold out their allotment of 17,500 tickets” (MIAMI HERALD, 1/4).

EMPTY FEELING: USA TODAY’s Steve Berkowitz reports attendance at this season's bowl games “is down from last season and might end up at one of the lowest per-game averages in more than 30 years.” The total attendance for the 29 bowl games so far, excluding last night's Allstate Sugar Bowl, “is nearly 2% lower this season than it was last season.” If this trend holds for the remaining six games, the average bowl attendance for the season “will fall below 51,000 for only the second time since 1979.” This season's attendance also “is nearly 2.5% lower when compared against the previous five-season average for the 25 games played in each of those seasons” (USA TODAY, 1/4).

DROP IN DEMAND: In Alabama, Wayne Grayson noted the BCS National Championship game on Jan. 9 between LSU and Alabama “has an average ticket price about 40 percent lower than last year's national championship game.” As of Friday, “the average ticket price ... is $1,997.79.” At the same time last year, tickets for Auburn's matchup with Oregon “were 39 percent higher, at $3,266.10 on average.” TiqIq.com Founder & CEO Jesse Lawrence, whose company lists sporting event tickets sold by major sites, said that “this year, the ‘get-in,’ or lowest national championship ticket price, is now $1,100.” Lawrence: “There's a different dynamic this year, though. Both of these teams have been to the championship and won it in the past five years, so there's a lot less urgency on the part of the fans to see them play” (TUSCALOOSA NEWS, 1/3).