B'ham News on the Bowl, seems to be a lock!

[E.T.]

South Florida likely to get invitation to Birmingham

Saturday, December 02, 2006

JON SOLOMON

News staff writer

The inaugural Papajohns.com Bowl will likely have the flavor of an old Conference USA game.

South Florida will be invited this weekend to Birmingham's new bowl if the Big East, as expected, receives only one Bowl Championship Series bid. The Bulls, who left C-USA for the Big East in 2005, would play East Carolina, which accepted a bid this week.

The Papajohns.com Bowl and the new International Bowl in Toronto share the Big East's last postseason picks. The plan is for Cincinnati to go to Toronto and South Florida to Birmingham.

"South Florida is focused on the Birmingham Bowl and vice versa," said Ken Hoffman, executive director of the International Bowl. "It would be really difficult for South Florida to mobilize as many people to Toronto as it can to Birmingham. It just makes sense, especially in a year when these are inaugural games."

The only scenario that could change this outcome is if Louisville gets selected for an at-large BCS bowl ahead of LSU. In that case, South Florida would go to the Texas Bowl, Cincinnati would move to Birmingham and Pittsburgh - which is 6-6 and possibly out of bowl options - would head to Toronto.

However, LSU has pre-sold 32,000 tickets to the Rose Bowl and is a strong candidate to give the Southeastern Conference two BCS bids. That would leave the Big East champion as its conference's only BCS representative.

Both schools will be allotted 10,000 tickets for the Papajohns.com Bowl.

Located in Tampa, South Florida averaged 30,222 fans per game at six home games this season.

The Bulls sold 6,200 tickets at their first bowl game, the Meineke Car Care Bowl last year in Charlotte. South Florida paid for about $380,000 in unsold tickets because it had to guarantee 12,500 tickets for the bowl.

Tampa is 456 miles from Birmingham and Greenville, N.C., is 556 miles away, but East Carolina's fans are known to travel well and the Pirates averaged more fans (37,168) per home game than did South Florida.

East Carolina said it expects to sell its 10,000 bowl tickets, but cautioned that could be fewer because the Dec. 23 date is so close to Christmas.

South Florida (8-4 overall, 4-3 Big East) started its football program from scratch in 1995 under coach Jim Leavitt, who once interviewed for Alabama's job and is considered a candidate for major jobs this year. The Bulls upset Louisville in 2005 and won at West Virginia last week.

The team's freshman quarterback, Matt Grothe, is making a name for himself nationally. Grothe has rushed for 607 yards and nine touchdowns, and thrown for 2,495 yards and 14 touchdowns.

The two participating schools will split the total payout of $600,000.

Kickoff at Legion Field on Dec.23 will be at noon and the game will be televised by ESPN2.

E-mail: jsolomon@bhamenws.com

http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1165054708326760.xml&coll=2

[USF_Grouper]

We should suggest to ECU that we make the payout "winner take all".  Also as far as the two schools splitting the $600k, our share just goes into the BE pot right?  I think all we keep is some travel allowance.

[MikeG]

that seems like an abnormally low payout. I thought the teams were both guaranteed a minimum of $750,000 EACH or the bowl could not be held??? Aren't there specific minimums?

[USFMikeB]

that seems like an abnormally low payout. I thought the teams were both guaranteed a minimum of $750,000 EACH or the bowl could not be held??? Aren't there specific minimums?

If I recall correctly, that changed in 2003, and there isn't a minimum anymore.

Also think about the numbers: $600K @ $30 a ticket = 20K attendance minimum.  $1.5M @ $30 a ticket = 50K attendance minimum.  This bowl wouldn't survive at that payout rate.

[E.T.]

TV revenue

[MikeG]

and sponsors/concessions etc--- there is more money than just the ticket price

[E.T.]

And our game is at 1 and the next game is at 4:30, New Mexico Bowl  ... we should have a pretty good viewing audience, with it being on Saturday.

And for those wondering, it's on HD  8-)

[USFMikeB]

Yes, and there are more costs than just the team payouts.  I was just giving an example guys...

[TampaTower]

**** LSU sold 32,000 tickets already.

Didnt the care bowl pay out 1.1m per team.  If I remember correctly a article in SP Times last year about how USF only netted like 80K because  of expenses such as unsold tickets they had to eat.

[Greg Auman]

That payout goes to the Big East, which reapportions its bowl revenues to supplement the payouts to participating schools, so they don't lose money on the bowl trip. USF will get $1.1-million from the Big East if it goes to Birmingham.