MIAMI (AP) -Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer just won his third Atlantic Coast Conference championship in five years, so he clearly can recruit players.
With the Orange Bowl looming, now he’s trying to recruit fans.
Mindful of the economic downturn and how consumers are watching their money perhaps more closely than ever before, Beamer recorded a short video for the Hokies’ athletic Web site, imploring folks to buy seats for the Orange Bowl against Cincinnati in Miami on Jan. 1.
Beamer’s message: “We really need to see Dolphin Stadium filled with orange and maroon.”
But at the same time, Beamer understands the reality: Even the biggest Hokie fans simply might not have the money right now.
Amid a recession sparked by declining home values and stock market losses, there seems to be plenty of tickets for both games in Miami – the Bowl Championship Series title game on Jan. 8 between Florida and Oklahoma, preceded by the Virginia Tech-Cincinnati matchup a week earlier, also at Dolphin Stadium – but not an abundance of demand.
go to the Orange Bowl,” Beamer said. “I think you take advantage of those opportunities. I hope before it’s all over our fans will show up like they normally do. But they’re a part of us, they’re a part of helping us win and we need them down there.”
Cincinnati and Virginia Tech both receive 17,500 tickets to sell to their fans and students; the Bearcats, who have never been on the BCS stage before, have already sold about 9,000, coach Brian Kelly said Thursday.
But there are signs that Hokies fans might not be coming south in their typical droves, either.
Sara Brown, who owns the University Travel agency in Blacksburg, Va., said her company sold about 400 travel packages for last year’s Orange Bowl to Virginia Tech fans. So far this year, only about 100 have been purchased.
“Generally, it comes in real quick, like within the first four or five days before the announcement,” Brown said. “We’re certainly hoping that it picks up. It’s just a bad year for everything.”
For tourism-dependent Miami, that could be a troubling sign.
In some respects, South Florida is the epicenter of the downtrodden housing market. The Sunshine State had the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country in September, and numerous condo buildings either sit empty or half-built, victims of the credit crunch that struck both buyers and builders.
of businesses in Miami, big and small. Orange Bowl Committee president S. Daniel Ponce said his group, which oversees both the Orange Bowl and this year’s BCS title game, estimates the total economic impact on South Florida over bowl season at $350 million to $400 million.
“Bowl games, all across the country, we’re an escapism,” Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms said. “I think people tend to go to support their institutions, not only to be around their friends and family, but to be around their respective nations. I think people get a real charge out of that.”
But are they willing to charge tickets?
Some are, but sales are clearly down from this time last year, said Scott Roback, a spokesman for the ticket reseller RazorGator.
“There’s a substantially larger amount of tickets available this year than last year. It’s not even close,” Roback said. “It’s definitely down from past years.”
For the Orange Bowl, tickets in the highest level of Dolphin Stadium were being resold online for as little as $19, a veritable bargain for a BCS game. Some club-level seats were on sale for $625 and a 40-person suite was offered for $33,546 – or $5,537 more than the median household annual income in the city of Miami, according to the most recent data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
And compared to the BCS title game, those prices were downright cheap.
et on sale Thursday morning would set a fan back $448, and only one of those was available. Prices in the lower bowl ranged $670 to $4,472 apiece, and the most expensive suite (enough space for 48) would cost someone $223,637.
Those numbers might seem steep, but Roback said prices – which are set by sellers, not RazorGator – are down quite a bit from last year.
In 2007, the cheapest seat on RazorGator for the BCS title game was $695, the highest (not including suite sales) was $4,650 and the average was $1,530. Last year, the range was about the same. But this year, the average price so far is down 32 percent, at $1,035 per ticket.
Still big money, but a big dropoff, too.
“It’s tough out there right now,” Poms said. “It’s very, very real, what’s out there.”
Not all bowl games are hurting: Of the 34 postseason matchups, 18 have at least one school within a four-hour drive of the bowl site, meaning cost-conscious fans could, if they chose, drive to the game and back in the same day and avoid the added expense of a few days in a hotel and dining out.
Most, if not all, of those selections were by design, like South Florida to the St. Petersburg Bowl, California to the Emerald Bowl, Vanderbilt to the Music City Bowl and Hawaii to – what else? – the Hawaii Bowl.
“I may add extra seats because we’ll be sold out, mostly by Cal fans,” Emerald Bowl director Gary Cavalli said.
here’s still plenty of proof that the recession has hit college football, and maybe the best evidence came last weekend in Tampa, when Virginia Tech and Boston College met in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
The league said it distributed around 53,000 tickets; the stadium only appeared to hold about half that many people.
Granted, that game only gave fans one week to make their arrangements, unlike the month of buildup that precedes a BCS game. But that matchup wasn’t exactly one that captivated the nation’s interest – especially with Florida-Alabama and Oklahoma-Missouri also on the docket that day.
Pairing Virginia Tech and Cincinnati might not give the casual fan much reason to come out either, Roback said.
“The hard-core fan is going to have an appreciation for a team like Cincinnati, because they’ve got a great coach and a bunch of great players and have played five quarterbacks this year and they’re a great story,” Roback said. “But I think the Big East and the ACC were both down this year.”
Beamer wouldn’t necessarily agree with that assessment.
Still, even he knows it’s a tough sell for fans right now – especially since Virginia Tech played in the Orange Bowl last year and visited Miami earlier this season. An average travel package will cost a Hokies fan about $1,800, and that doesn’t include a game ticket.
all the road games during the year,” Brown said. “And then to go back to Miami, which is not inexpensive and isn’t a place people can drive to from here, it’s hard. I just think it comes down to everyone is watching their expenses these days.”
Add A Comment