Fans not eating up Tangerine Bowl
Cory Stone doesn’t want to be outnumbered this month when he cheers for the Jayhawks at the Tangerine Bowl.
The Lawrence resident and his cousin were so excited about going to Orlando, Fla., they bought tickets before Kansas University had formally accepted the bowl bid.
That enthusiasm may not be catching on with other Jayhawk fans. Tickets sales for the Dec. 22 matchup against North Carolina State have been slower than some had anticipated.
“That’s my concern — I don’t want to be surrounded by a ton of Wolfpack fans,” Stone said. “I’m hoping we’ll have a good turnout.”
By Friday evening, KU had sold about 2,000 of the 12,000 tickets it was allotted, said Jim Marchiony, associate athletic director for external relations. Even free tickets being offered to KU students are a tough sell. Only 80 had been handed out by Friday evening.
But Marchiony said it was too early to say how many fans would travel to Florida.
‘It’s early’
“We never put a target number on it, saying we would expect a certain number of fans,” he said. “We’re pleased. It’s early in the process. We’re expecting more to come.”
Tangerine Bowl officials said they hoped that was the case. Brett Sowell, Florida Citrus Sports director of communications, said he’d like to see KU draw at least 5,000 fans to Orlando.
“They should come for the excitement surrounding the game itself,” Sowell said. “They could come down for the weekend. Their team is on the rise, so I hope they take advantage of that.”
Attendance has increased at the Tangerine Bowl each year since it moved to Orlando from Fort Lauderdale in 2001. In 2001, an N.C. State-Pittsburgh matchup drew 31,500. That increased to 35,000 last year when Clemson met Texas Tech.
Bowl officials are hoping they can sell close to 40,000 tickets this year, and said local sales were about 30 percent ahead of last year.
Flying commercial
But at least one Lawrence travel business has been disappointed in fan response.
Walt Houk, president of Travellers Inc., had envisioned hundreds of Jayhawk fans traveling to Orlando on three separate planes chartered by his company.
There hasn’t been enough interest for even one charter flight.
“It’s a disappointment in that we would like to have a lot more people go to a bowl from the area, but it is Christmastime,” Houk said. “Had three or four hundred people wanted to travel, then we wouldn’t have been able to fit commercially, and the charter would have worked. We didn’t have that many wanting to travel, but it would have been a lot nicer to be able to do that.”
He said he still expected more than 200 Lawrence-area fans to fly to the game; they’ll be riding commercial airlines.
That’s how Stone plans to get to Florida. He said he would be making the trip, in part, to celebrate his birthday, which is Dec. 20.
“It’ll be a fun trip,” he said. “I’m pretty psyched.”
Bowl advocates
The Kansas Alumni Association has been calling and e-mailing members in the Orlando area in an effort to increase game attendance.
The association’s Mike Wellman said about 7,600 KU alumni live within a day’s drive of Orlando, including 800 who live in the greater Orlando area.
“I don’t think there’s anybody around that would tell you they are not worried” about attendance, Wellman said. “We haven’t been to a bowl in a long time. Maybe it’s not on their radar. All we can do is get the word out and encourage people to go.”
Tough task: Florida Jayhawks scrambling for tickets (12-5-03)
Fans not eating up Tangerine Bowl (12-6-03)KU officials also are encouraging students to attend. The athletics department promised all students who attend the game a free ticket. And Student Union Activities is working on travel options for students.
Houk said most of his travel packages cost about $875, which SUA’s Leslie Heusted thought was too pricey for most student budgets. To solve the problem, SUA has chartered a bus to Orlando. The 23-hour bus ride and two-night hotel stay can be had for as little as $255 a person, Heusted said.
“The buzz that we’re hearing around campus is, ‘How are you getting to Orlando?'” Heusted said. “Hopefully this will provide an option that students can afford.”
Journal-World reporters Terry Rombeck and David Mitchell contributed to this report.