Falcons reversing trend with bowl attendance
1/4/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
The Air Force football team earned its 10th win this season with a 42-21 win over South Alabama in the Nova Home Arizona Bowl on Dec. 30. For Air Force, this was the ninth bowl game in the last 10 seasons, but for Falcon fans this was an opportunity to support the team in its first trip to the Arizona Bowl.
"The Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl was an absolutely phenomenal experience for our cadets, our staff and our entire Falcon fan base,” Air Force Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. “Mike Feder and his team did a tremendous job. A sincere thank you to the people of Tucson and all the great men and women of Davis Monthan Air Force Base that supported us and made this feel like a home game. From the great people we had the pleasure to work with, to our outstanding hotel, practice facility, stadium and bowl events, we could not have asked for a better send off for our seniors, who will soon graduate and serve our country as leaders of character for our nation."
Air Force distributed its entire allotment of 5,000 tickets and generated more than $140,000 in its Tickets for Troops campaign. The Tickets for Troops campaign provides resources so that most deserving service men and women and their family members receive tickets for free to attend the bowl game. Recipients of the tickets are chosen by installation commanders, chief master sergeants, first sergeants or their equivalents.
In addition, bowl game sponsors donated more than 12,000 tickets to active, reserve and retired military, first responders, police, firemen and teachers through the bowl’s Heroes Tribute Program. All tickets provided were sponsored by local companies, ensuring these most-deserving fans an opportunity to attend the game.
While the trend among bowl games is decreasing attendance, Air Force has flipped the script. According to FBSschedules.com, the total number of fans attending the 40 FBS games (not including the national championship game) decreased from 1,720,733 in 2015-16 to 1,634,287 in 2016-17, a decline of five percent.
The attendance at the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl of 33,898 was a 66 percent increase over the 20,425 last season. The 66 percent increase is the second highest among all 40 bowl games, coming in just behind the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl (93 percent from 20,229 in 2015-16 to 39,117 this season).
The Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl’s attendance (33,898) was the highest among bowls that did not involve a Power Five team and a team from the same or a boarder state. The only bowl game with two Group of Five teams that had a higher attendance featured Southern Mississippi and Louisiana Lafayette in the R +L Carrier New Orleans bowl with an attendance of 35,061 (both teams are within 135 miles of New Orleans).
The last two years, the bowl that Air Force has played in has seen a rise in attendance. The 2015 Armed Force Bowl, featuring Air Force and Cal, saw a rise in attendance of more than 1,000 fans, from 37,888 in 2014 to 38,915 in 2015.
Over the last 10 years, Falcon fans have proven to support the team in the post-season. In seven of Air Force’s last nine bowl games, the a bowl has drawn more than 33,000 fans.
--30--
