Orange Bowl Ticket Sales Going Poorly For Both Teams
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – The Orange Bowl has battled declining TV ratings over the past few years as lackluster matchups have generated little buzz, last year's Andrew Luck show being a notable exception.
This year's Orange Bowl could be the worst in recent memory. The Orange Bowl was forced to select West Virginia and Clemson for the game, which is the worst matchup by BCS ranking of all of the BCS bowls.
The game hasn't produced much buzz in South Florida and even amongst the fans of the two teams who will play in the game.
According to the Washington Post, West Virginia's ticket office said it had sold just 7,000 of its 17,500 ticket allotment. Clemson was doing even worse, selling just 5,600 tickets as of Monday, according to the Post.
For comparison, the Fiesta Bowl and the Rose Bowl have seen all of their teams sell their full allotment of tickets.
Part of the problem for West Virginia and Clemson is that they have to take the tickets allotted to them regardless of whether they can sell them.
So, despite the big payday the schools and conferences receive for getting to the Orange Bowl; in the end, the school's face the risk of losing a lot of money by playing in the game.
There's also a secondary problem school's face with regards to ticket sales. The universities have to charge face value for the ticket.
But ticket resellers like Stubhub.com have tickets for as little as $36 just a few weeks before the game.
Even lower bowl tickets are going for as low as $99, making it even more difficult for school's to turn a profit on the BCS trip.
