OT: Hawaii Bowl tickets on sale through Groupon. Will this be a trend?

Submitted by MikeCohodes on

So today I noticed on the Groupon site for Honolulu that they are offering tickets to the Hawaii Bowl (Dec 24th, Fresno State vs Southern Methodist) for $9.  These are for the north end zone.

I know bowls are desperate to sell tickets to games so is this going to be a trend we will see at other bowls this year?  And will this be something that continues into the future?  Just curious of thoughts of the board.  If you are going to be in Hawaii for the holidays, are you going to pick up this deal?

Link to the deal: LINK

Brodie

December 7th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

this is a big pet peeve of mine

there is no "TaxSlayer.com Bowl".. it's the Gator Bowl with TaxSlayer as a sponsor. That'd be like calling the Sugar Bowl the "All State Bowl". Similarly, there is no "San Diego County Credit Union Bowl" (it's the totally acceptable Poinsettia Bowl) and there was never a WeedEater Bowl (it was the also well named Independence Bowl)

Volverine

December 7th, 2012 at 10:09 PM ^

I'll never understand why people on this board can't have light-hearted humor. I feel like people don't even add things to discussion half the time; they just post to put other people down.

If you read my posts, you'd see that I acknowledge that no one calls these bowl games by their corporate names, but some of the corporate names are pretty ridiculous.

Creedence Tapes

December 7th, 2012 at 7:28 PM ^

Not a big deal, Cal games where on groupon last year when they played at AT&T Park, and so was the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl. Tickets were still too expensive, and nodbody went.

 

http://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-cal-bears

 

http://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-kraft-fight-hunger-bowl

 

As a bonus, here is the write up: 

Sports played with spheroids are easier to master than rectangular sports, such as Rubik's cubing and throwing bricks into windows. Watch circular savants at work with today’s GrouponLive deal: for $36, you get one ticket for sideline-bleacher seating to see the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl between the UCLA Bruins and the Illinois Fighting Illini on Saturday, December 31, at 12:30 p.m. at AT&T Park (a $60 value; with all ticketing fees included, the value is $73.75). Gates open at 11 a.m.

 

and : 

Like open-heart surgery and jousting with yardsticks, football is a game of inches. Measure out some field-side fun with today’s GrouponLive deal: for $59, you get twopremium-sideline Section A, B, or C tickets to the California Golden Bears' home football game against the Presbyterian Blue Hose at AT&T Park on Saturday, September 17 (up to a $130 value). Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m.

acnumber1

December 7th, 2012 at 8:34 PM ^

If I were going to be in Hawaii on December 24th about the last place I'd like to spend 3.5 hours is in that concrete behemoth watching Fresno St. vs SMU.

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rschreiber91

December 8th, 2012 at 7:38 AM ^

My wife is from Hawaii, and I've been to this game before.  The only time they can sell tickets to it is when UH is in the game, and they are ALWAYS in it if they're over .500 (unless of course they win their conference and have to go to the Holiday Bowl -- or whatever game the winner of their conference goes to now -- or if they go undefeated again sometime in the next 100 years and wind up in a BCS game like when they got routed by Georgia in the Sugar Bowl 4 years ago). 

LSAClassOf2000

December 8th, 2012 at 9:00 AM ^

Here's an interesting ESPN piece from early in  the year that is most relevant for this thread - (LINK). 

Long story short, it talks about how overall bowl attendance was down 2.1% last year due in part to economic concerns, but also admittedly less-than-thrilling matchups. It uses the Hawaii Bowl as an example actually - 19,411 people watched Southern Mississippi play Nevada last December, less than half the attendance of the year before (when it was Tulsa vs. Hawaii). I assume Fresno State and SMU may struggle to match even that much interest. I imagine this is part of the reason for the Groupon deal, trying to get people to Hawaii and get them to consider perhaps this game at the almost no-consequence price of $9 (compare to what you would pay to actually get to the islands, of course). 

What is sort of intriguing was the discussion on bowls that got it right by adding teams closer to the site and with fans that would be willing to make the trip.  Purdue in the Little Caesar's Bowl, for example, and that bowl's 14,000-person jump in attendance. 

 

 

Mr. Yost

December 8th, 2012 at 10:17 AM ^

#1 - As it's been said many times, there are TOO MANY BOWLS

#2 - Once you get past the top bowls (8-4 teams or better)...all of the rest of the bowls should be local matchups. For those teams, it's just about an extra game and extra practices --- not an intriguing matchup.