What Constitutes Traveling Well This Year?

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GoldenAle

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I wish I could make the bowl this year, but already have travel plans. Out of curiosity, how many tickets would we need to sell through the U to make this a success? Also, if anybody has past ticket numbers for the last two years that would be interesting as well!
 

A couple years ago we sold a little more than 2,000 tickets to the Texas Bowl after about a week. Last year we sold 3,375 tickets to the Texas Bowl.

Successful sales would be around 10,000 IMO. That's on par with (and maybe a little below) what major teams in the Outback and Capital One bowls have sold in the past. I hope we get close but that's a lot of tickets to sell. The university is likely on the hook for about 12,000 tickets.
 

Mizzou has an initial allotment of 8,000 tickets, my guess is the U would have the same?
 

homermn said:
Mizzou has an initial allotment of 8,000 tickets, my guess is the U would have the same?
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Gotcha, didn't know that. I saw that in 2012 Nebraska had an allotment of 12,500 tickets, assumed we'd be similar.

Edit: Looks like the conference worked with the bowls to reduce those allotments by 2-3k during last offseason. So, 8,000 seems right. I would hope very much we can sell that out.
 

According to this article, Wisconsin fans had only bought 3,400 public tickets after two weeks of sales last year. Granted, there was the whole "Orlando fatigue" thing (the main reason why we're in this game in the first place), but I hope we will have stormed past that number before long.
 


Besides the high-rolling boosters aren't these things mostly attended by fans who already live near the area? Can't imagine many working stiffs like me having the $$$$ and vacation days to spend on a single away football game. Only bowl game I've been to was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the 1979 Orange Bowl which was the most extravagant family vacation we ever took.
 

bkrownd said:
Besides the high-rolling boosters aren't these things mostly attended by fans who already live near the area? Can't imagine many working stiffs like me having the $$$$ and vacation days to spend on a single away football game. Only bowl game I've been to was a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the 1979 Orange Bowl which was the most extravagant family vacation we ever took.
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I think a lot of "normal" folks will stretch the vacation budget by a little bit and make it work (seems like that's what a lot of people on here are doing). People can make a trip out of it, spend a day at the game, a day at a park, soak in some warm weather. It's too expensive for many people (myself included), but not prohibitive if you were already saving up for a family vacation, or you have frequent flyer miles to take the sting out of plane tickets.
 

I don't think grandma would forgive me if I cut her out of my vacation budget to go to a football game. ;)
 

If you can't go, at least buy tickets through the U for support. My guess is they will go to the Military,
and maybe the Epilepsy Foundation in the greater Orlando area
 



I laugh when they say the U doesn't travel well. In my mind this is the first bowl we have been to since 1962. Houston, Nashville, etc. no thanks.

Go Gophers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Gopher07 said:
Gotcha, didn't know that. I saw that in 2012 Nebraska had an allotment of 12,500 tickets, assumed we'd be similar. Edit: Looks like the conference worked with the bowls to reduce those allotments by 2-3k during last offseason. So, 8,000 seems right. I would hope very much we can sell that out.
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I talked to a ticket office manager today about the "scholarship seating" (sorry, not trying to change the subject) and threw our conversation, I, thought I remember him saying 8,000 or 9,000 was the current allotment with a possibility to add more.
 

There are over 100 thousand Minnesotans that live in Florida, I have a feeling we will see plenty of older Gopher fans in the stands.
 

nasa35 said:
There are over 100 thousand Minnesotans that live in Florida, I have a feeling we will see plenty of older Gopher fans in the stands.
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I know there's a bunch on the Gulf side (retirees and snowbirds in Naples and Fort Myers). That could boost things.

I think the destination helps, as others have said. I won't be able to swing it, but Orlando provides the opportunity for a "two-fer" vacation in that you could hit the game and do a whole lot of other family things.
 



Generally the Big Ten team that has wound up in Orlando in recent seasons has come in after losing the conference title game and a chance at Pasadena. This year we come in an upbeat mood and consider the Citrus Bowl a treat not a letdown. That ought to help at least as will never having been there before. A big key to selling the allotment will be making sure Gopher fans buy from the U of M not from Ticketmaster, StubHub or at the box office on gameday. I think we can get 8,000 to 9,000 Gopher fans in the stadium, but if only 5,000 buy from the U of M, leaving the school on the hook for unsold tickets and substantiating the "Minnesota fans don't travel in numbers" school of thought, it will be a problem.
 

If when they scan the crowd on TV and there looks to be thousands of people in Maroon and/or Gold, the public will think that the Gophers travel well. Better yet, if the announcers keep telling us that there are "a whole lot of Gopher Fans here" everybody will think we travel well.
 

I agree with that, but it will help more if the Citrus Bowl looks at its balance sheets and doesn't see that we sent back 4,000 tickets.
 

My opinion obviously includes Missouri fans in this, but if we don't sell 55,000 tickets, it will be the lowest citrus bowl sales in a really long time.

Selling 60,000 tickets would make our point that we can travel and that the opposing team thinks we are worth their money.

If there aren't 55,000 in the stands, or if Missouri looks like they outnumber us 70-30 then I would bet that we won't be playing on J1 again( unless we win the conference) for a long time.

Selling the 8,000 allotment won't do us any good if we only bring 12,000 fans. We need to have 20k-30k people in maroon and gold for this to be a success.
 

nasa35 said:
There are over 100 thousand Minnesotans that live in Florida, I have a feeling we will see plenty of older Gopher fans in the stands.
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I don't really care if they are in a hospitable bed, as long as the stadium is full, I'll be happy.
 

afurry91 said:
Selling the 8,000 allotment won't do us any good if we only bring 12,000 fans. We need to have 20k-30k people in maroon and gold for this to be a success.
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That's completely unrealistic. You're talking about Rose Bowl numbers. I would be thrilled, and I bet the Citrus Bowl would be very pleased, if we had 12,000. That would blow away what Nebraska and Wisconsin sold for the last two Citrus Bowls combined.
 

afurry91 said:
My opinion obviously includes Missouri fans in this, but if we don't sell 55,000 tickets, it will be the lowest citrus bowl sales in a really long time.

Selling 60,000 tickets would make our point that we can travel and that the opposing team thinks we are worth their money.

If there aren't 55,000 in the stands, or if Missouri looks like they outnumber us 70-30 then I would bet that we won't be playing on J1 again( unless we win the conference) for a long time.

Selling the 8,000 allotment won't do us any good if we only bring 12,000 fans. We need to have 20k-30k people in maroon and gold for this to be a success.
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You aren't taking into consideration all the people from the area that go to the game that aren't affiliated with either team. Plenty of people just want to see a good college football game.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
That's completely unrealistic. You're talking about Rose Bowl numbers. I would be thrilled, and I bet the Citrus Bowl would be very pleased, if we had 12,000. That would blow away what Nebraska and Wisconsin sold for the last two Citrus Bowls combined.
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When we're in the Rose Bowl, we're bringing 50,000+. That you can count on.
 

Jike Spingleton said:
That's completely unrealistic. You're talking about Rose Bowl numbers. I would be thrilled, and I bet the Citrus Bowl would be very pleased, if we had 12,000. That would blow away what Nebraska and Wisconsin sold for the last two Citrus Bowls combined.
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Okay maybe I'm completely ignorant to how other teams travel. I admit that all I did was look at the previous year's attendance in the citrus bowl to draw my conclusion.

However I do not think 20k is outrageous, and it's certainly not Rose Bowl numbers. Michigan State sold 31k rose bowl tickets to donors and season ticket holders and didn't sell any to the public because they were all gone before they had the chance. Safe to say MSU had at least 40k in Pasadena last year. If 30k is our rose bowl attendance if we happen to get there for the first time since the 60s, then that is pathetic.

I don't think 20k is outrageous. It probably won't happen, but it better if you want to shed the theory that we don't travel well. I expect Missouri to be in the 20k range and they already spent their money on an SEC championship.
 

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