Southern schools have a reputation of traveling better to bowl games... but then, the trip is about half as far (i.e. Clemson fans can drive to Florida, Syracuse fans would have to fly). I wonder how much impact that fact has on which teams travel well? I guess a fair comparison would be Clemson in the Champs Sports bowl vs. Syracuse in the Pinstripe bowl. Anyone care to do that analysis?

(06-25-2012 07:23 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  Southern schools have a reputation of traveling better to bowl games... but then, the trip is about half as far (i.e. Clemson fans can drive to Florida, Syracuse fans would have to fly). I wonder how much impact that fact has on which teams travel well? I guess a fair comparison would be Clemson in the Champs Sports bowl vs. Syracuse in the Pinstripe bowl. Anyone care to do that analysis?

I dont know what Clemson takes to the Orange. But Syracuse took between 25,000-30,000 fans to the Pinstripe Bowl. It looked like it was almost all Syracuse fans on tv. But then again, the Pinstripe Bowl is not on the same level as the Orange Bowl. The bigger the Bowl, the bigger you would expect the teams traveling fanbase to be.

(06-24-2012 10:34 PM)catdaddy_2402 Wrote:  

(06-24-2012 09:00 AM)omniorange Wrote:  Wow. Here's a fact I was unaware of.

Clemson had only sold about half of their 17,500 Orange Bowl ticket allotment as of December 29, 2011 for their January 4 game vs West Virginia. WVU had only sold 11,000 by that time as well.

But that was the Tigers' first big Bowl in ages. How could this be? Maybe Clemson doesn't have such a great traveling fan base after all?

http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/111229/story5.shtml

I know, I know, they purchased cheaper tickets through stub hub, Wednesday night game. yada, yada, yada.

I've hinted in the past that the Clemson Tiger traveling football fanbase was limited to places like Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Atlanta, and the South Carolina and North Carolina destinations, but this even I had a hard time believing.

In light of this, perhaps it's time a certain someone stop talking about how other fanbases don't travel? Nah, that ain't going to happen.

Cheers,
Neil

Nah, didn't have anything to do with the date or anything. You know, Jan 4th...several days after everybody else has got back to work after the holidays. The same date that the Orange Bowl people have complained about several times.

I couldn't go because of the date. One guy I know who has been to every single Clemson bowl game since the Gator Bowl in 1977 couldn't go because he had to work. Mind you he went to Boise in 2001, but couldn't make it to the Orange Bowl this year because of work schedules.

It was Jan 4th, a Wednesday. To attend a bowl game in Miami the vast majority of Clemson fans would have had to have three days of vacation.....a travel day, game day, and a travel day (without much sleep I might add) just to attend, after Christmas and at a point where most everybody but the government is working their ass off because of the new year.

The fact that I have to defend Clemson to someone from Syracuse....a school that everybody and their brother knows doesn't travel for football....a big reason why the Big East had to hitch their cart to the Notre Dame wagon, is hilarious. I was at the Gator Bowl where McNabb and company ran us off the field. There may have been 10k Cuse fans there. I can't wait to see the supposed traveling hordes of Syracuse fans that invade Death Valley. I imagine it'll be like playing one of the in-state SoCon teams both in visiting fan attendance and Clemson fan enthusiasm. We don't get up for basketball teams from the south....why should we for one from pretty much Canada?

My dear catdaddy, I must call out this whining about why Clemson fans couldn't attend a midweek bowl game. When Wake Forest was in the 2007 Orange Bowl, we not only sold our allotment, but asked the bowl for more tickets, and our number of living alumni/fanbase is probably less than the seating capacity at Death Valley. The game was on January 2nd, a Tuesday, so while most people would have had Monday off from work for New Year's, you still had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off. My company does not allow time off from December to end of January due to end of year payroll processings and W-2 creation, but I still managed to make it to the game by calling in sick. Representing my alma mater at the Orange Bowl was that important to me.

(06-25-2012 07:50 AM)Lucy Wrote:  When Wake Forest was in the 2007 Orange Bowl, we not only sold our allotment, but asked the bowl for more tickets, and our number of living alumni/fanbase is probably less than the seating capacity at Death Valley. The game was on January 2nd, a Tuesday, so while most people would have had Monday off from work for New Year's, you still had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off. My company does not allow time off from December to end of January due to end of year payroll processings and W-2 creation, but I still managed to make it to the game by calling in sick. Representing my alma mater at the Orange Bowl was that important to me.

Your boss told me to tell you that you're BUSTED!

(06-25-2012 08:22 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(06-25-2012 07:50 AM)Lucy Wrote:  When Wake Forest was in the 2007 Orange Bowl, we not only sold our allotment, but asked the bowl for more tickets, and our number of living alumni/fanbase is probably less than the seating capacity at Death Valley. The game was on January 2nd, a Tuesday, so while most people would have had Monday off from work for New Year's, you still had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off. My company does not allow time off from December to end of January due to end of year payroll processings and W-2 creation, but I still managed to make it to the game by calling in sick. Representing my alma mater at the Orange Bowl was that important to me.

Your boss told me to tell you that you're BUSTED!

LOL!

(06-24-2012 10:54 PM)catdaddy_2402 Wrote:  Traveling fanbases brings bowl invites. If anybody outside of Clemson, VT, and FSU traveled worth a damn we would have stood a far better chance of keeping the Gator. If anybody outside of WVU and Louisville traveled worst a damn the Big East would have better bowls than they do.

You know why the Gator Bowl is excited about a SEC/B1G matchup even though it is way further down the foodchain than they had with the ACC/Big East? Because they know SEC and B1G schools will travel. Want to know why Pitt keeps ending up in Birmingham? Because y'all don't travel.

And yet travelling doesn't win football games which is what I care about. The reason Pitt has wound up in Birmingham for the last two years isn't because Pitt fans don't travel (although this is true) - it's because we haven't won.

We did get snubbed by the Gator Bowl a few years back and wound up playing UNC in the Car Care Bowl because we don't travel, however, the team who took our spot was ND. Nobody else would have won that battle anyhow.

If there's one thing I've learned as a Pitt fan, worrying about attendance and how well the fan base travels is stupid. If you win enough you can cure these flaws to a certain degree. Winning, on the other hand, is good in and of itself and that's where the focus needs to be.

Attendance should be controlled as a ratio of the school's enrollment. If your total enrollment is 10K and your attendance is 40K you're doing awesome. If your total enrollment is 50K and your attendance is 40K you're underperforming.

(06-24-2012 09:00 AM)omniorange Wrote:  Clemson had only sold about half of their 17,500 Orange Bowl ticket allotment as of December 29, 2011 for their January 4 game vs West Virginia. WVU had only sold 11,000 by that time as well.

You don't understand how bowl distribution works.

When GT went to the Orange Bowl ... this is what went down:

1) Orange Bowl hands GT a block of tickets in set sections.
2) GT then makes tickets available in the following priorities:
---- 2a) GT personnel and player family
---- 2b) Season Ticket Holders (by # of years consecutively, then by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
---- 2c) Non-season ticket holder frequent ticket buyers (by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
---- 2d) General public (by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
3) GT sells the tickets between 40-200% over Orange Bowl direct face value depending on where you WANT to be and where you are in line, and that is without mark up bizarrely enough.
4) GT cannot tell you where you are sitting until this endless conga line of priorities stops roughly 2 weeks before the game. Due to the Orange Bowl apportionment, most people will be in the upper deck corner.

So ... I can pay as much as double Orange Bowl face value for lower level seats and almost certainly end up in the nose bleed corners .... OR I can buy direct from the Orange Bowl and select my seat in advance and save money. And that is precisely what I did.

The Orange Bowl ticket scheme banks on the game being a complete sell out, and forcing people into the school allotments last. If that doesn't take place, the schools are left holding the bag. I want to say Georgia Tech brought about 25,000 to the Orange Bowl. They probably could have hit 35,000 but many folks were tapped out on $$$ or vacation time or both from the ACC-CG in Tampa. Iowa brought what seemed like the entire city of Des Moines ... but was probably like 40,000. So a total of 65,000 in the 80,000 capacity Orange Bowl. Predictably, both schools were left holding unsold tickets ... even Iowa.

(06-25-2012 12:30 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Attendance should be controlled as a ratio of the school's enrollment. If your total enrollment is 10K and your attendance is 40K you're doing awesome. If your total enrollment is 50K and your attendance is 40K you're underperforming.

This is an excellent idea which I will use for my 2012 ACC grades (after the up-coming season is over).

(06-25-2012 11:09 AM)ndlutz Wrote:  

(06-24-2012 10:54 PM)catdaddy_2402 Wrote:  Traveling fanbases brings bowl invites. If anybody outside of Clemson, VT, and FSU traveled worth a damn we would have stood a far better chance of keeping the Gator. If anybody outside of WVU and Louisville traveled worst a damn the Big East would have better bowls than they do.

You know why the Gator Bowl is excited about a SEC/B1G matchup even though it is way further down the foodchain than they had with the ACC/Big East? Because they know SEC and B1G schools will travel. Want to know why Pitt keeps ending up in Birmingham? Because y'all don't travel.

And yet travelling doesn't win football games which is what I care about. The reason Pitt has wound up in Birmingham for the last two years isn't because Pitt fans don't travel (although this is true) - it's because we haven't won.

We did get snubbed by the Gator Bowl a few years back and wound up playing UNC in the Car Care Bowl because we don't travel, however, the team who took our spot was ND. Nobody else would have won that battle anyhow.

If there's one thing I've learned as a Pitt fan, worrying about attendance and how well the fan base travels is stupid. If you win enough you can cure these flaws to a certain degree. Winning, on the other hand, is good in and of itself and that's where the focus needs to be.

Actually, WVU went to the Gator with an identical record (and a win over Pitt in the Brawl, ND was 6-6 without a bowl that year). Pitt was taken by the Car Care over Rutgers, UConn and USF who all were within the two win rule.

Pitt attendance is not great but it is rich when hoopies talk as if they have some massively superior fan support. They do not. In the last decade, they've had, by far and its not even close, the best teams in their entire history yet their attendance was less than 10K more than a mediocre Pitt program over that same period. They don't sell out their stadium, except for major games just like Pitt, even though it is smaller than Heinz. That makes Heinz often seem less full.

And Pitt has crapped the bed every time it had any expectations. When you expect a BCS bowl and blow 21 point lead at home, and fall to the Car Care bowl in Charlotte the day after Christmas, then yes, you don't travel well. When Pitt's momentum as a program was on the upswing, and the locations and dates were favorable (12/31/97 Liberty; 12/31/08 Sun Bowl) Pitt has traveled well. When the dates, opponents, season have sucked, we haven't. The Fiesta Bowl against upstart Utah with a an 8-3 team that backed into the bowl with a lame duck coach, no, Pitt didn't travel well. Pitt would travel ok, if not great, to Florida bowls or Peach, etc. It won't travel well to see a 6-6 team play in Birmingham on January 7.

(06-25-2012 12:40 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(06-24-2012 09:00 AM)omniorange Wrote:  Clemson had only sold about half of their 17,500 Orange Bowl ticket allotment as of December 29, 2011 for their January 4 game vs West Virginia. WVU had only sold 11,000 by that time as well.

You don't understand how bowl distribution works.

When GT went to the Orange Bowl ... this is what went down:

1) Orange Bowl hands GT a block of tickets in set sections.
2) GT then makes tickets available in the following priorities:
---- 2a) GT personnel and player family
---- 2b) Season Ticket Holders (by # of years consecutively, then by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
---- 2c) Non-season ticket holder frequent ticket buyers (by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
---- 2d) General public (by Alexander-Tharpe Fund points)
3) GT sells the tickets between 40-200% over Orange Bowl direct face value depending on where you WANT to be and where you are in line, and that is without mark up bizarrely enough.
4) GT cannot tell you where you are sitting until this endless conga line of priorities stops roughly 2 weeks before the game. Due to the Orange Bowl apportionment, most people will be in the upper deck corner.

So ... I can pay as much as double Orange Bowl face value for lower level seats and almost certainly end up in the nose bleed corners .... OR I can buy direct from the Orange Bowl and select my seat in advance and save money. And that is precisely what I did.

The Orange Bowl ticket scheme banks on the game being a complete sell out, and forcing people into the school allotments last. If that doesn't take place, the schools are left holding the bag. I want to say Georgia Tech brought about 25,000 to the Orange Bowl. They probably could have hit 35,000 but many folks were tapped out on $$$ or vacation time or both from the ACC-CG in Tampa. Iowa brought what seemed like the entire city of Des Moines ... but was probably like 40,000. So a total of 65,000 in the 80,000 capacity Orange Bowl. Predictably, both schools were left holding unsold tickets ... even Iowa.

All schools have similar deals. Neil's point about the Pinstripe is that in spite of these deals, Syracuse still represented well. Granted, it is NYC and in the Holiday season (multiple reasons to visit) but NYC is probably more expensive than most locales during the holidays, so money being tight, travel, etc. is yada, yada, yada.

In reality, the bowls should lower their payouts and grant tickets to the schools at a much more reasonable rate instead of playing a game to make it look like a payout is actually being made.