WCCO: Gophers Fans Line Up Early For Citrus Bowl Tickets

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per WCCO:

There were customers in line when the University of Minnesota athletic ticket office opened for business Monday. They were there to buy tickets to the Gopher football team’s upcoming bowl game.

Unlike past postseason football trips to Texas, Tennessee and Arizona, this game for the Gophers is in Orlando at the Citrus Bowl.

The Gophers have been passed over before for more attractive bowl games because of a fan base that’s notorious for not traveling well. Julie Gotham of Blaine says this trip might be different.

“I sure hope so,” she said. “When we have a good team to go see, that makes all the difference in the world. This is a really exciting opportunity and all the stars are lining up.”

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/12/08/gophers-fans-line-up-early-for-citrus-bowl-tickets/

Go Gophers!!
 

How many Minnesota transplants are in Florida?
 



When we went to the Insight Bowl in the 06/07 season, there was a pretty big MN crowd - by my estimates it was bigger than the TTU crowd despite them being much closer (& able to drive on the cheap if they wanted). I was told (at the time) that more MN residents retire to AZ than FL (which is traditionally more seen as a NE retirement place), but seems like that may be untrue. Either way, that was a season that wasn't nearly as good as this one, in a worse bowl, in a worse location (Orlando is a huge tourist draw even if Tempe is a fine city), with a less dazzling opponent than an SEC conference division champ. I would expect us to have a pretty strong contingency.
 


RailBaronYarr said:
When we went to the Insight Bowl in the 06/07 season, there was a pretty big MN crowd - by my estimates it was bigger than the TTU crowd despite them being much closer (& able to drive on the cheap if they wanted). I was told (at the time) that more MN residents retire to AZ than FL (which is traditionally more seen as a NE retirement place), but seems like that may be untrue. Either way, that was a season that wasn't nearly as good as this one, in a worse bowl, in a worse location (Orlando is a huge tourist draw even if Tempe is a fine city), with a less dazzling opponent than an SEC conference division champ. I would expect us to have a pretty strong contingency.
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The eastern half of the peninsula is full of northeastern retirees, the western half is full of midwestern retirees. Lots of Minnesotans in the Fort Myers area.
 

I-95 is a straight shot to the eastern side of Florida from New York, Philadelphia, DC, and the rest of the northeast. The western side of Florida has Midwesterners due to I-75 shooting down from Ohio and Michigan and eventually intersecting with interstates funneling people down from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.
 

BJN said:
The eastern half of the peninsula is full of northeastern retirees, the western half is full of midwestern retirees. Lots of Minnesotans in the Fort Myers area.
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Sarasota too.
 

Is this game expected to sell out? Is it wise to just buy tickets on the street before the game as one way to save money?
 



25mkg said:
Is this game expected to sell out? Is it wise to just buy tickets on the street before the game as one way to save money?
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depends where you want to sit. tickets on the minnesota side/sections are apparently moving very quickly (just went on sale today) from what others have noted.
 

Talked to the ticket office an hour ago. Was told they had sold 2,000 Citrus Bowl tickets.
 


Sure not bad, considering we sold 3,300 through the ticket office all of last year. Hope that momentum continues.
 



We're excited to go! My wife and I are going with our next-door neighbors, who are Missouri fans. Good times!
 

Can someone help me out with the "buy them from the U" rationale? People making that argument say that the bowls want to see the University sell out their share but that sounds backwards. The U is forced to buy an allotment, seems that the bowl would prefer you buy the other seats wouldn't it?
 

golden boy said:
Can someone help me out with the "buy them from the U" rationale? People making that argument say that the bowls want to see the University sell out their share but that sounds backwards. The U is forced to buy an allotment, seems that the bowl would prefer you buy the other seats wouldn't it?
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My guess it is much easier to track the turnout from a particular school by looking at ticket sales through the university.
 

golden boy said:
Can someone help me out with the "buy them from the U" rationale? People making that argument say that the bowls want to see the University sell out their share but that sounds backwards. The U is forced to buy an allotment, seems that the bowl would prefer you buy the other seats wouldn't it?
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No. That isn't how it works. The U, and any university, is tasked with selling out/owns selling their allotment of tickets prescribed by said bowl. That allotment amount varies from bowl to bowl. With the largest being the New Year's Six Bowls, followed by Tier 1 Bowls (i.e. Citrus, Outback, etc.) and so on. But it is incorrect that bowls would consider allotment tickets sold seats unless and until they are in turn actually purchased from said universities by fans going to the game. Schools generally have to pay bowls back for the value of their official ticket allotment amount that they don't sell. Even if it looks on TV or at the game like "hey we have more than XX people here" and our bowl ticket allotment to sell was XX." Some may not like it, but if a bunch of those tickets were purchased via a secondary market source the universities in question are not getting credit from the bowls for selling those tickets to their fans.

So that is why it is imperative, whenever possible, that fans going to bowl games buy their game ticket(s) through the official university sanctioned outlets. So the university gets credit for being able to sell their ticket allotment. Harder for bowls to track officially when a ticket is purchased through a secondary market, non-university sanctioned source.

Bowls would prefer both, but are very keen on schools who can sell out their official allotment amount of tickets first and foremost. Sales above and beyond selling out your allotment on a pretty consistent basis is what really starts to get Tier 1 bowls attention.
 

GophersInIowa said:
My guess it is much easier to track the turnout from a particular school by looking at ticket sales through the university.
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Yes, if they sell out the stadium, it's a success either way and both programs look good. But selling our allotment is important in representing the program for the future. It will be interesting to see what they go for on the secondary market, I don't see this being like Houston. This bowl attracts a lot of casual college football fans all around Florida because of the quality of teams it brings.
 

golden boy said:
Can someone help me out with the "buy them from the U" rationale? People making that argument say that the bowls want to see the University sell out their share but that sounds backwards. The U is forced to buy an allotment, seems that the bowl would prefer you buy the other seats wouldn't it?
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Yea, it's not that the current bowl wants you to buy through the U, it's that future bowls want to see that a school they're considering has sold out their allotment in the past as a proxy for how well it's fans support bowl games. Not that it's a perfect measure, but it's a measure.
 

what type of showing did all our "snow birds" make at the Micron PC bowl - it was Ray Christenson's last game as I recall - I am curnching numbers trying to make this work - with wife and four kids it keeps coming up tails
 

Iceland12 said:
Talked to the ticket office an hour ago. Was told they had sold 2,000 Citrus Bowl tickets.
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Hopefully that momentum keeps up. I'm sure a lot of people are still waiting to finalize travel plans.
 

holereader said:
what type of showing did all our "snow birds" make at the Micron PC bowl - it was Ray Christenson's last game as I recall - I am curnching numbers trying to make this work - with wife and four kids it keeps coming up tails
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It was undoubtedly awful. The total attendance for the game was 28,359 (for comparison, last year's Texas Bowl was 32,327, and the infamous 2006 Insight Bowl was 48,391). Of course, that was a "let down" year for us after going 8-4 the year previous and heading to El Paso.
 

Gopher07 said:
It was undoubtedly awful. The total attendance for the game was 28,359 (for comparison, last year's Texas Bowl was 32,327, and the infamous 2006 Insight Bowl was 48,391). Of course, that was a "let down" year for us after going 8-4 the year previous and heading to El Paso.
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It was horrible weather in Miami. Temps in the 40's. We stayed right on South Beach and people were wearing parkas. Rained during the game
 



Gopher07 said:
It was undoubtedly awful. The total attendance for the game was 28,359 (for comparison, last year's Texas Bowl was 32,327, and the infamous 2006 Insight Bowl was 48,391). Of course, that was a "let down" year for us after going 8-4 the year previous and heading to El Paso.
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Infamous Insight Bowl...as i recall we were up big in that Minron PC bowl as well - 24-3 at half as I recall - I cant remember the name of the running back but we ran that poor kid into the ground..he had a huge first half and was gassed in the second half...where it got away from us

Now I remember - Tellis Redmon - he had a great game
 

holereader said:
Infamous Insight Bowl...as i recall we were up big in that Minron PC bowl as well - 24-3 at half as I recall - I cant remember the name of the running back but we ran that poor kid into the ground..he had a huge first half and was gassed in the second half...where it got away from us

Now I remember - Tellis Redmon - he had a great game
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Yep. We we up 24-0 at home point. Redmon had 246 yards.

Box score: http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/080511aaa.html
 


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