Continental Tire Bowl Allotment Sells Out

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Dec. 17, 2002

Charlottesville, Va. – Athletic ticket manager Dick Mathias announces UVa’s allotment of tickets to the Continental Tire Bowl sold out on Monday afternoon. According to Mathias, UVa will be credited with more than 20,000 tickets sold, which includes the school’s three allotments of tickets and those sales credited to the school for tickets purchased through the bowl office.

“We are pleased to announce this sellout less than a week after receiving our invitation to play West Virginia in the Continental Tire Bowl,” Mathias said. “Our fans have made a statement of their interest in this game, and in our team, with their tremendous response in buying a record number of tickets.”

Continental Tire Bowl officials in Charlotte, N.C., also announced Monday a sellout of the Dec. 28 game that pits UVa vs. the West Virginia Moutaineers with ticket sales numbering 73,258. According to bowl officials the game sold out early Saturday morning, less than six days after announcing the pairing of the two teams.

The game is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and will be televised by ESPN2. The game is played at Ericsson Stadium, home of the NFL Carolina Panthers.

The 73,258 tickets sold for the Continental Tire Bowl ranks as the second-highest attendance figure for a first-year bowl game.

The NCAA attendance record for a first-year bowl game was set by the now-defunct Blockbuster Bowl, on Dec. 28, 1990, when 74,021 watched Florida State defeat Penn State 24-17 in Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium.

Since college football’s first bowl game – the Rose Bowl in 1902 – there have seven bowl games whose debut attendance exceeded 50,000.