TAMPA BAY, Fla. – A post-bowl report by Florida State University reveals the Seminoles’ disappointing football season resulted in the school having to “buy out” the overwhelming majority of tickets it was tasked with selling ahead of its Independence Bowl appearance.
According to the FSU report, the school sold just 1,132 of the 6,000-plus tickets it was required to sell to the Dec. 27 game in Shreveport, La. – fewer than the disappointing number of tickets the University of South Florida sold to the Birmingham Bowl, held four days earlier.
The Seminoles won the Independence Bowl, 42-13, over Southern Miss, to cap off a 7-6 year, FSU’s 41st consecutive winning season.
FSU’s total allotment for the game was 6,064 tickets, so the school gave 2,126 tickets away to local charities and members of the armed forces; 2,438 tickets went unused; and the remaining 400 or so were used by the university.
Schools like FSU typically receive millions from their conferences for simply appearing in a bowl game, and the conference sometimes helps pay for unsold tickets. But poor showings at a bowl box office, where ticket guarantees can sometimes climb north of 10,000 tickets, can still eat away at hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue a school would have otherwise been able to put back into its programs.
Find 10Investigates reporter Noah Pransky on Facebook or follow his updates on Twitter. Read his Sports Business Blog at Shadow of the Stadium.
►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the 10 News app now.
Have a news tip? Email tips@wtsp.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.
