ACC Doing What It Can To Boost Ticket Sales

A visitor to Boston College's official athletic Web site is greeted by a welcome screen declaring that seats are available for Saturday's ACC football championship game. Go to Virginia Tech's athletic Web site, and the same message appears.

But it remains to be seen whether such marketing efforts will lead to a larger crowd for the conference's marquee football matchup.

The conference remains optimistic. Michael Kelly, the ACC's associate commissioner for football, said yesterday that local ticket sales already have surpassed sales from last season's game at Jacksonville (Fla.) Municipal Stadium, when attendance at the 77,497-seat stadium was announced as 53,212. This season's game is at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, and with 65,857 seats, a less-than-capacity crowd will not appear as small on television.

As of yesterday morning, Kelly said 30,000 to 35,000 tickets have been sold in the Tampa area, compared with a bit less than 30,000 last year. Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, said the campaign has been boosted by a local marketing push featuring Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber, who played college football at Virginia.

The game could be a tough sell for a number of reasons. Virginia Tech and Boston College played in the ACC championship game last season and are two of the northernmost teams in the conference. Plus, the matchup wasn't determined until last weekend, and the economy could prevent some people from making the trip.

Virginia Tech has sold 3,000 of its 10,000-ticket allotment so far, according to the school. Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo did not have an updated total as of yesterday morning.

Last season's ticket sales encouraged DeFilippo, though he was not sure how a rematch might affect this year's attendance.

"We had two weeks to prepare for the game" last season, DeFilippo said. "And the economy right now is not real good. I saw a dramatic drop in the number of people from Maryland during Saturday's [regular season] game. I think we've heard that from other teams as well. . . . We're doing everything we can to sell tickets."

Entering the final weekend of the ACC regular season, four teams were in contention to reach Tampa -- a number that had been pared considerably from the preceding weeks, when 10 teams were mathematically alive. DeFilippo said optimistic Eagles fans who purchased tickets two weeks ago also secured airfare for less than $300, but that fares now are much higher based on such short notice.

Had Virginia Tech and Boston College lost Saturday, Georgia Tech and Florida State would have been the participants. It would have been much easier for fans who live near those schools to travel to the game.

"Certainly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the map and realize we're not right down the street from either" the Boston area or Blacksburg, Va., Higgins said. "But there's the opportunity to come here and do it in a cost-effective manner, and we've heard great things out of both the schools about the volume of people coming."

After holding its first three championship games in Jacksonville, the ACC moved the game to Tampa for this season and next before shifting it to Charlotte for two seasons starting in 2010. At that point, the conference will determine whether the game is best suited to a permanent site or rotating locations.

Meantime, Kelly and Higgins pointed to a fan festival, a party celebrating some of the ACC's greatest players on Friday night and a free concert by country singer Blake Shelton following the game -- along with tickets priced as low as $25 -- as drawing cards.

"The game is still in its infancy, and we're growing to a point where we won't be as participant-sensitive," Kelly said. "That's what the formula is for us no matter where we go. We maintain enough tickets that it's reasonable for our schools to get and have the rest sold to the local marketplace. We may not get there this year, but we'll make the formula work."