Las Vegas Bowl Attendance Estimate At About 30,000 For Florida Vs Oregon State At Allegiant Stadium 11:30 AM Saturday; Change Of Game’s Start Time Affected Ticket Sales
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
John Saccenti caught a bad break.
The executive director of the Las Vegas Bowl worked nearly an entire year on marketing the ESPN-owned college bowl game at Allegiant Stadium, But then at the eleventh hour, the game was shifted from its original 4:30 PM start to an 11:30 AM kickoff Saturday because of a change in the starting time of the NFL Raiders-Patriots game the next day on Sunday.
Plus, instead of the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl being broadcast on ABC network TV, the game will now be on ESPN.
“It’s certainly not what we wanted,” Saccenti told LVSportsBiz.com about the change in the game time. “It’s had an impact on ticket sales.”
Saccenti said ticket sales as of Friday were around the 30,000 mark — not too far from last year’s estimated 32,000 for the Arizona State vs Wisconsin game. Allegiant Stadium can house a little more than 60,000 football fans.
It was a challenge to recruit fans to travel across the country on short notice to watch their unranked 6-6 Florida team, so Saccenti tried to tap the pool of nearly 400,000 Florida Gator alums in the West in places like Colorado, Arizona and California to entice them to watch their alma mater play a quality 14th-ranked Oregon State team.
“It’s a long way to travel on short notice,” he pointed out about Florida fans in the Sunshine State.
The Las Vegas Bowl has beefed up its stature when it moved from Sam Boyd Stadium to Allegiant Stadium.
A team from the Pac-12 Conference continues to participate in the Las Vegas Bowl.
But now, the Big Ten and the SEC alternate each year sending a team to Las Vegas to play the Pac-12 team. So. that’s three Power 5 conferences participating in the Las Vegas Bowl. Last year’s Big Ten team was Wisconsin, while Florida this year is the Southeastern Conference’s first representative in Las Vegas.
Oregon State has played in the Las Vegas Bowl. The Beavers defeated New Mexico in 2003, while BYU routed Oregon State in 2009.
Like the National Finals Rodeo, the Las Vegas Bowl is a crucial sports event generating tourism during a time of the year when hotel occupancy rates in Las Vegas traditionally dip between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
