<embed style="width: 482px; height: 28px;" class="sIFR-flash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" sifr="true" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" wmode="" flashvars="txt=Many fans plan to stay home for bowl game&textcolor=#000&hovercolor=#3276D9&linkcolor=#3764A6&w=482&h=28" quality="best" src="http://www.michigandaily.com/pages/sifr/caslon.swf" height="28" width="482">
By Ian Herbert, Managing Sports Editor
December 13, 2005
<!-- end bylineDateBox --> If it seems like none of your friends are going to the bowl game this year, it’s because they probably aren’t.
Bowl game ticket sales are down this year for Michigan, which will play Nebraska in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28. Marty Bodnar, the associate athletic director for ticketing services, said the Athletic Department has sold 147 student tickets and approximately 5,000 total tickets for the game in San Antonio.
Last year, when Michigan played in the Rose Bowl, the Athletic Department sold nearly 35,000 tickets, including 2,000 that were bought by students.
But the Rose Bowl is a bigger game than the Alamo Bowl.
The last time Michigan played in the Alamo Bowl, after the 1995 season, the University sold just more than 6,000 tickets. Bodnar said he thought the total number of tickets this year could increase by 100 or so over the next week, but he said he expected it to stay well below the number from 1995. Tickets range in price from $50 to $80, which includes a $5 surcharge that goes to the Athletic Department.
“We’d love to be able to sell more, but that’s not the case,” he said. “But is it disappointing? No.”
Bodnar has heard complaints that flights to San Antonio were too expensive and that direct flights from Detroit were difficult to find. On its website yesterday, Northwest Airlines was advertising a one-stop round-trip flight from Detroit to San Antonio for $550 before taxes.
LSA senior Laxmi Shah said that she was simply not interested in the game.
“It’s not as big of a game,” said Shah, who has season tickets and went to every game this year except one.
LSA sophomore Mohammed Khalil said that tickets for the game were not publicized well, and Engineering freshman Mike Smietana said that he just didn’t feel like traveling over break.
LSA senior Jess Evans, one of the few students who plans on attending the game at the end of the month, is traveling to San Antonio with her parents. She said that she would have bought tickets to sit with her friends, but none of them were going to the game.
“A lot of us are poor because we’re seniors,” Evans said. “It’s not as hyped as the Rose Bowl.”
Because it’s part of the BCS, the Rose Bowl generally sells more tickets than the Alamo Bowl. The stadium holds more than 100,000 fans, as opposed to the 65,000 fans that fit into the Alamodome in San Antonio.
The Rose Bowl allots the schools playing in the game 25,000 tickets to sell to students and alumni, and the Alamo Bowl gives each school an allotment of a little more than 10,000 tickets.
Nebraska sold all of its allotted tickets by last Thursday — four days after they went on sale. And according to a Nebraska press release, Alamo Bowl officials have already agreed to give the university more seats.
“The response from Husker fans has been unbelievable,” Nebraska assistant athletic director for ticketing John Anderson said in a statement. “The immediate response was outstanding, and sales have been very steady throughout the week.”
Michigan still has plenty of tickets available, and Bodnar said they will be available all week. The University uses its preferred seating plan to determine which fans get the best seats, and the program takes into account donations to the Athletic Department when determining seats. All the students are grouped together in one student section, but students who did not buy tickets by the original Friday deadline are not guaranteed to sit with other students.
