Any word on Ticket Sales?

[Asmodeanreborn]

200 tickets? Are you kidding me? That can't be right.

Guess they weren't kidding when they said there'd be a few hundred Fresno fans there, at best.
I can't really mouth off about them too much, though as I'm not able to go because of other obligations :tickedoff:

 

[PokeNer]

Wow, 23,000 tickets sold - 200 to Fresno State. How many UW fans bought through NM instead of UW like me? I did the same thing Pittsburgh Nelllie did and have seats 11 rows up, 50 yard line. There must have been a ton of us. Sorry UW! I'm guessing there will be a fairly large NM contingent there as well supporting the Pokes and MWC.

Does anybody know how many tickets are usually sold/given out to area businesses, ect? I'm guessing not a whole lot, so we could have 15,000+ UW fans there!??

 

[katjust]

First of all, I don't believe there will be anywhere near 30,000, but I'd love to see it.

Second, if Fresno only brings 600, they have the sorriest fan base that I have ever seen. I don't care how bad/undeserving they think that Wyoming is. This is a team that lost last years game to a supposedly inferior team. Wyoming, a team with a supposedly smaller fan base, and supposedly so awful that they are a double digit underdog to a third place WAC team, is probably going to have 7-10 times more people at the game. And if there are even 23,000 at the game, the odds are that those that come from the area will be rooting for the MWC team, or at least the underdog. If true, this will basically be a home game for Wyoming. I am skeptical of the numbers, but I hope they are true.

Fresno, if you can only muster 600 fans for any bowl game, I don't care if it is in China, then you are weak. Get rid of the football program, it obviously can't make you any money.

 

[Yoda]

First of all, I don't believe there will be anywhere near 30,000, but I'd love to see it.

Second, if Fresno only brings 600, they have the sorriest fan base that I have ever seen. I don't care how bad/undeserving they think that Wyoming is. This is a team that lost last years game to a supposedly inferior team. Wyoming, a team with a supposedly smaller fan base, and supposedly so awful that they are a double digit underdog to a third place WAC team, is probably going to have 7-10 times more people at the game. And if there are even 23,000 at the game, the odds are that those that come from the area will be rooting for the MWC team, or at least the underdog. If true, this will basically be a home game for Wyoming. I am skeptical of the numbers, but I hope they are true.

Fresno, if you can only muster 600 fans for any bowl game, I don't care if it is in China, then you are weak. Get rid of the football program, it obviously can't make you any money.

The unemployment rate in Fresno is 15.8%. We've been to 10 bowl games in 11 years. It's Christmas and finals week. And we're playing in a bowl game that nobody really cares about. No offense to ABQ but few of us have been dying to go there in December. It isn't worth the 15 hour drive for most Dog fans -- not when it is on television.

Basically, there is nothing compelling about this game and if you are going to motivate people to fight through all the issues associated with it, then there has to be something compelling. In my view, this bowl game is one of about 20 that shouldn't even exist.

You'll notice that I said nothing bad about the opponent. Just thought I'd point that out...

Yoda out...

 

[katjust]

Yoda, I respect you. I think that you are intelligent. I have respect for Fresno State as a team.

However, I am pissed off when any division 1 football team's fans won't travel. I know that Fresno has been spoiled, and that they have been to a lot of bowl games.

My guess is that if Wyoming went to the New Mexico bowl next year with a 6-6 or 7-5 record they might only bring half the fans they are bringing this year.

My major problem is that 600 is incredibly weak! Maybe it is just because I am a Wyoming fan, I was expecting a least a couple more bowls since 2004, and am hungry to see a bowl game, but 600??? I don't care how crappy this game is. I don't care if this game was played against Southern Utah, and Fresno State was fresh off winning the national championship.

I can excuse those fans who are unemployed though, they have a legitimate excuse. I just expected more than 600 die hard Fresno fans.

To not be too negative, I usually root for Fresno State otherwise, and always liked the bulldog mascot.

 

[Dread_Pirate_Cowboy]

Who cares if Fresno only sells 600 tickets. That is just money out of their own pockets.

What has me torqued is having a high CJC priority, putting in the $25 service fee, buying 11 tickets, and finding out I'm on the 20 yard line in the upper deck when I could have purchased directly through UNM and been on the 50 in the lower stands. What a croc! I want to support UW but this just stinks. I'll bet UW's ticket sales end up in the 3,500 range, but I'll also bet there's more like 10k+ actually in attendance. Hell, we brought 3k to San Diego for a regular season game. There was over 2k in Miami for the Florida Atlantic game. Only UW game I've been to with only 600 or less UW fans was Louisianna-Monroe (I still have flashbacks that wake me up at night).

Bottom line, Fresno TALKS like they are big time, but don't act like it.....TEXAS brought how many to Laramie? maybe 20 times what Fresno is bringing to Albequerque? So the saying is "Anywhere, Anytime, just don't expect our fans to support us".

 

[Bryoming]

In my view, this bowl game is one of about 20 that shouldn't even exist.

Agreed. I'm super pumped for Wyoming to be going to a bowl game, but I really don't think that 6-6 teams are deserving of a bowl bid. In 1997 there were only 16(!) bowl games. Getting to a bowl game was a big deal. Now you expect to go bowling every year or the season is a bust. And who really gives a damn about half of these games?

Bowls that need to die:
St. Petersburg Bowl
Eagle Bank Bowl
New Mexico Bowl
Papajohns.com Bowl
Humanitarian Bowl
Meineke Car Care Bowl
GMAC Bowl
Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl
Outback Bowl

I've left some of the newer bowls on the list because I think they present intriguing matchups. Another beef I have with the bowl games is the sponsorships. When you change the name of your game because some sponsor ponied up big money (Citrus Bowl, I'm looking at you) you have sold your soul.

Wikipedia has a great table outlining the bowl games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_bowl_games

 

[nirv117]

What has me torqued is having a high CJC priority, putting in the $25 service fee, buying 11 tickets, and finding out I'm on the 20 yard line in the upper deck when I could have purchased directly through UNM and been on the 50 in the lower stands. What a croc! I want to support UW but this just stinks.

I have thought the same thing. I want to buy through UW, and I did, but I'm wishing I had bought through the bowl because they are offering better seats donor or not.

 

[Adv8RU12]

Population of Fresno -- a little over 500,000 -- air transport to Albuquerque easy.
Population of Wyo --- about 532,000 -- air transport to Albuquerque not easy.

 

[katjust]

I think that most people agree that the importance of going to a bowl game, and even winning a bowl game has been watered down. So, it makes sense that these games are not going to have the same attendance that they otherwise would have had.

However, a bowl game is another chance to see your team play. Not only that, a bowl game is fun. It is at a neutral site (usually), a different stadium, in a different city. All that, AND you get to watch football! Even though the New Mexico Bowl may be one of the least impressive bowls, and perhaps the least impressive, it is still exciting for me. I confess that if UW was going to a bowl every year it would not be so exciting, but I can tell you that the most memorable game that I ever attended was when a then 6-5 UW beat a 6 win UCLA team in the Las Vegas Bowl.

There are so many bowl games because they can make money, if they don't they go out of business.

So, I guess if you are really against the bowl games, you can put them out of business by not going. Also, you probably shouldn't watch the game on TV, that would contribute to ratings.

 

[Bryoming]

So, I guess if you are really against the bowl games, you can put them out of business by not going. Also, you probably shouldn't watch the game on TV, that would contribute to ratings.

Which is exactly what I'm doing. (Except for the New Mexico Bowl, of course )

 

[cheypoke]

Well, I am NOT one of those who thinks there are too many bowl games. Sure, they arent as meaningful as they once were. But you will never hear me complain about there being too many football games on. I love college football. So the longer we can stretch it out, the better. I'm one of those guys who will stay up on a tuesday night to watch that Akron/Toledo (or whaterver) game. I am excited about this game as well. I usually root for Fresno. I've always liked Pat Hill's attitude. This is a good game for.

 

[Yoda]

I'd like to correct something that I said...

It's not that there are too many bowl games. It's just that there are too many where there is no compelling reason for fans to invest the time and expense necessary to follow their team to a distant location -- especially Christmas week, etc.

If things had worked out a little differently, this would have been nothing more than a conference game and conference games are not held at distant, neutral sites because attendance would suffer considerably. And I think that's the main limiting factor here. No offense to either team but, functionally, this is nothing more than a conference game between maybe the fourth and sixth place finishers in a hypothetical MWC 10 -- being played at a very distant neutral site with virtually nothing riding on the outcome.

If this game were on a Saturday night in Fresno in early October, we would probably draw 40,000.

Do both teams deserve to be there and to enjoy the special treatment? Yea, they do. But is there anything there to really motivate the fans? I don't think so.

Yoda out...

.