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It's official, Washington State is headed to the New Mexico Bowl. If you are planning on heading to Albuquerque to watch the Cougars make their first bowl appearance since 2003, you can buy your ticket beginning at 7 p.m. tonight.
Fans can purchase tickets online starting at 7 p.m. TONIGHT! Log in to your account here to purchase: http://t.co/vRWHWgvEvA #GoCougs
— WSU Cougars (@WSUCougars) December 9, 2013
That is, of course, if you didn't pre-order through the Cougar Athletic Fund. WSU athletic director Bill Moos said 2,500 tickets were sold during the pre-order process. Ticket sales are a big factor in bowl selections. Moos said the Pac-12 will help subsidize unsold tickets, but there are still numbers WSU has to hit. Ideally, fans will buy up the allotment and WSU won't have to tap into the budget to purchase the unsold allotment.
Without having direct knowledge of the numbers, I would guess the allotment figure is somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 tickets. Recent New Mexico Bowl attendance numbers have been in the 25,000 range. There seems to be a decent amount of excitement around WSU's bid, so the Cougars may not have much trouble selling its allotment.
EDIT: WSU doesn't have to sell nearly as many tickets as I estimated. From the Seattle Times:
Athletic director Bill Moos said the bowl requires a ticket commitment of $150,000 by the school, which, at $25 and $40 apiece, he figures to require about 5,000 tickets.
"I would guess we'd sell 5,000 to 6,000, maybe a few more," said Moos, who indicated that when WSU became bowl-eligible Nov. 23, the school started taking commitments from fans pledging tickets "regardless of where we were going to go." He puts that ticket number at about 2,500, saying, "that's a very good sign."
And if you're wondering what you can do outside of the game on your trip to New Mexico, Jeff Collier has you covered.
There are still 20 seats left for the 12/20 New Mexico "BaD Trolly Tour". I would actually kill to do that... http://t.co/RtlauMGTIZ
— Jeff Collier (@JeffDCollier) December 9, 2013