Bowl Championship Series Title Game

The Wiz of Odds is conducting a comprehensive study of bowl game expense reports. All of the data collected — expense reports for 56 teams and bowl surveys for 40 teams — are being posted on the site. Here is the latest installment. For an overview of the project, click here.

The Bowl Championship Series title game is a stand-alone entity staged by one of the four BCS bowl organizations annually. The Rose, Sugar, and Orange fund the game through their 501(c)(3) organizations. The Fiesta has a special-purpose 501(c)(3) called the Arizona College Football Championship Foundation used to present the title game every four years. Thus, the classification is always 501(c)(3) (or public charity). The first game was played in 1999.

2011 participants: Oregon and Auburn.

Oregon expenses: Tickets to the title game ranged from $200 to $325 and the Ducks reported 1,761 absorbed tickets at a cost of $555,575. Total expenses were reportedly $2.54 million. Oregon's official party — the team, coaching staff, band, cheerleaders, faculty and athletics department personnel — numbered 493. That’s below the norm of 568. Download Oregon Expenses

Survey: Athletic director Rob Mullens indicated he was "very satisfied" on nearly every category. But when asked about location of seats, the number of ticket purchases required and cost of game tickets, he downgraded to "satisfied." Download Oregon Survey

Auburn expenses: The Tigers reported absorbing 2,456 tickets at a cost of $781,825. Total expenses were listed at $2.9 million. Auburn’s travel party of 938 was the largest among the 56 expense reports obtained by The Wiz of Odds. Download Auburn Expenses

Survey: Athletic directors had six choices on the surveys: excellent, very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied. Jay Jacobs indicated he was "satisfied" on every question but four. He was "neutral" on the number of ticket purchases required, cost of tickets and the condition of the practice and playing field. He rated the overall bowl experience "excellent." Download Auburn Survey

Comments

[TheOldGreenDuck]

I am surprised by the number of tickets absorbed by the schools? I am a longtime season ticket holder and modest contributor to the Duck athletic fund but did not qualify for tickets through the Duck ticket office? I checked STUBHUB and decent tickets were offered of $600 to $900 each, the week of the game. Prior to the actual selection before Thanksgiving ticks were offered for $300 to $500. The Registered Grad Blog contained postings indicating ticket holders for the earlier bowl game in Phoenix were guaranteed tickets of the National Championship Game but you had to by both long before the teams were selected.