Little Caesars Pizza Bowl

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 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl has been played in the Detroit area since its inception in 1997. It was formerly the Motor City Bowl. The game is privately held by Dilip Dubey, chairman of the game, and operates as Motor City Sports Inc., a 501(c) nonprofit.

2010 participants: Florida International and Toledo.

Florida International expenses: FIU reported no absorbed ticket costs. This suggests the school negotiated a lower bowl payout (reported to be $750,000 per team) in exchange for bowl officials dropping the ticket commitment. FIU did report selling 392 tickets. The school also listed its travel party at 172, lowest among the 56 reports obtained by The Wiz of Odds. FIU listed its total expenses to be $396,601. Download Florida International Expenses

Survey: Although the game is played in the hub of the motor vehicle industry, athletic director Pete Garcia said there was a shortage of courtesy vehicles.

"We definitely could have used two more courtesy vehicles, three cars was not enough," Garcia wrote.

Garcia also gave a "neutral" rating to the availability of practice equipment.

"The only thing is that we had to bring our own practice equipment," he wrote. "We understand that this the norm for teams, but with our team traveling from Miami, it made it difficult to get our equipment trucked up to Detroit." Download Florida International Survey

Toledo expenses: The school reported selling all of its $60, $45, $23 and $15 tickets but got stuck with 902 tickets priced at $5. That left the bill for absorbed tickets at $4,510. Total expenses were reported to be $212,191, the second-lowest total of the 56 reports obtained by The Wiz of Odds. Download Toledo Expenses

Survey: Athletic director Michael O'Brien wrote no comments, but his responses to questions made it clear he wasn't overwhelmed by the Little Caesars Bowl experience.

He answered "adequate" when asked of his overall impression of the event. And he gave responses of "neutral" on the availability of practice equipment and cost of rooms.

In all, O'Brien answered, "satisfied" to 16 questions and "very satisfied" to seven. Download Toledo Survey

Comments

[bevo]

Thank you for this series on bowl games. It has been interesting.

In addition to the absorb ticket scam, which have argued against in other posts, you should look at the size of the traveling party.

Bowl games do not serve the team, the coaches, and the band. Can FOI requests get the names of people who traveled on the school's subsidized dime to these games? I am sure FERPA prevents schools from releasing players' and band members' names. :)