Not surprisingly, Virginia Tech has sold about twice as many as Arkansas: http://www.wholehogsports.com/news/2016 … -belk-bow/
I’m really surprised we’ve sold that many, I do know I got really good seats going through the UA ticket office. 45 yard line club seats, so I figured that meant we hadn’t sold many. Virginia Tech will have far more than 7,500 at the game, a lot of their fans will by on the secondary market to get good seats.
I’m surprised it’s not worse, too. I just don’t sense any excitement for it. I mentioned in a thread a couple of weeks ago that I have a friend who owns a travel company & she says their sales are way off past bowl games.
Our fans want a game within one day’s drive. Nashville or Birmingham would have been about the limit. Charlotte is 755 miles from Little Rock, 900+ to Fort Smith or Fayetteville. Second time we went to the Orange Bowl the ticket sales were pretty awful too. I’d be curious how we would travel to the Rose Bowl (which would require that we make the CFP at this point). Yes, our fans would be excited about the playoffs, but excited enough to fly to LAX or BUR to get there?
The Big Ten fans are usually an exception on traveling a long ways to a bowl game, but I’ve noticed most fanbases don’t travel that great if they’re going to be traveling very far. If you look at photos from the past several Liberty Bowl games, look at the number of empty seats any year that Arkansas, Ole Miss, or Mississippi St. aren’t in the game. South Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas A&M didn’t come close to filling their side, much less the end zone seats or opposite sides. The last 2 times Tennessee has been in the Cotton Bowl (2001 vs Kansas St., and 2005 vs A&M they didn’t have good turnouts at all. The East Division teams are great at traveling to east coast bowls, but it’s in their time zone. Florida couldn’t even sell it’s allotment for Tim Tebow’s last game in the 2010 Sugar Bowl vs Cincinnati. Just to be clear that I’m not making excuses for myself, I am going to the Belk Bowl, Section 344, Row 3 seats 17,18
I thought you were going to say Arkansas had just sold its first ticket.
My family will not be going to the bowl game. It breaks a string of 17 straight for my complete family – wife and two daughters – to join me at the bowl game. I’m flying. Just didn’t want to make a two-day drive. I would have done that had they been interested, but none were. It comes down to when they go back to work after the holidays. They knew that a two-day return trip by car was going to push them right to the limit as far as their break on their respective jobs. They opted not to go. I’ll be sad not to have them along. It’s always been a fun time. I’m pressed to get my work done at the bowl and also spend quality time with them. So in some ways, that takes some pressure off. But I’d take the pressure to have them along.