Bowls hustling to sell tickets

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Missouri didn't reach its goal of getting into a BCS bowl and was headed to the desert to face a 7-5 team that had lost its final three games of the season.

Sensing potential apathy for a bowl against a ho-hum opponent played halfway across the country, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel pleaded with Tigers fans to buy tickets to the Insight Bowl.

His ploy seems to have worked; Insight Bowl officials say they're on a record pace for the Dec. 28 game between Missouri and Iowa at Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium.

"It's always a tough climate, especially with the economy the way it is right now," said Adam Lehe, ticket manager for the Insight Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and BCS national championship game. "It's not always the No. 1 priority, and getting the people to travel and make the financial and time commitment, we appreciate everything everyone has done."

Other bowls aren't having as much luck, no matter what the coaches or schools have done.

A glut of choices -- 35 games this season -- a sputtering economy, some long-distance travel and a handful of less-than-exciting matchups have made selling tickets a difficult proposition even for some of the bigger bowls.

Georgia Tech has gone the full used-car salesman route for the Dec. 27 Independence Bowl.

The school, in honor of its 14th consecutive bowl appearance, offered $14 tickets to the game against Air Force in Shreveport, La. The game isn't that far away and will feature the nation's top two rushing teams, but fans have been unimpressed enough that the university extended the deal until Christmas in hopes of spurring sales.

The BCS bowls aren't immune. The Fiesta Bowl has a nontraditional matchup between BCS regular Oklahoma and Connecticut, and while it will likely do well at the box office, both schools are coming up short.

Oklahoma was well short of selling its allotment this week and UConn was worse, with only about 4,000 tickets sold.

It's not all doom and gloom.

The BCS national championship, Rose and Sugar bowls are predictably sold out. The Cotton Bowl sold out within minutes of the teams being announced. The Armed Forces Bowl in Dallas was a sellout before the teams were known, and Southern Methodist playing in the game only enhanced the desire for tickets.

The Music City Bowl, featuring in-state favorite Tennessee against North Carolina, sold out within days.

Even the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is doing well. UNR sold its allotment of 11,000 tickets in two days and asked for more for the Jan. 9 game in San Francisco against Boston College.

"We are blown away by the response," UNR athletic director Cary Groth said.