Looking at Big East bowl attendance

I took a look at Big East regular-season home attendance in a post last week. Now it's time to turn the focus on the league's turnout at postseason games.

I asked each league school to provide the number of tickets they sold to its bowl game this year. The amount is the official number of tickets sold through the school allotment; we all know that fans can buy tickets through other sources and often times at much better prices. I have noted where it was obvious that teams had far bigger showings than the official number.

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl: Connecticut purchased about 5,000 tickets through its allotment for the BCS appearance, leaving the school on the hook for paying for more than 12,000 seats.

Champs Sports Bowl: West Virginia sold 6,200 tickets for its game against NC State.

Meineke Car Care Bowl: South Florida sold a little more than 4,000 tickets for the game against Clemson.

BBVA Compass Bowl: Pitt distributed about 2,500 tickets for its game against Kentucky.

New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Syracuse sold about 8,000 tickets from its allotment of 10,000. However, the heavily pro-Orange contingent at Yankee Stadium was much larger than that.

Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl: Louisville sold its entire 10,000-ticket allotment, and school officials estimate that the Cardinals had about 15,000 fans at the game.

Now, here were the numbers from last year's bowl games:

Allstate Sugar Bowl: Cincinnati sold 18,000 tickets.

Konica Minolta Gator Bowl: West Virginia sold 15,000 tickets.

Meineke Car Care Bowl: Pitt sold 5,000 tickets.

Papajohns.com Bowl: Connecticut sold 4,500 tickets.

International Bowl: South Florida sold 1,000 tickets.

St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers sold 9,600 tickets.

Overall, the numbers were weaker at the top but stronger at the bottom in bowl ticket sales. Sounds like the Big East season in a nutshell.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/38605/looking-at-big-east-bowl-attendance-2

Joe DeLamielleure Gene Hickerson Joshua Cribbs USC Trojans football Colorado Buffaloes Notre Dame Fighting Irish