UK Fans Dominating Music City Bowl Ticket Sales

NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN – Ticket sales for this year’s Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl already have surpassed attendance for last year’s game.

Music City Bowl officials said ticket sales for the 12th annual game Dec. 27 at LP Field between Kentucky and Clemson are approaching 57,000.

Attendance for last year’s game between Vanderbilt and Boston College was 54,250.

Kentucky fans have accounted for the majority of the tickets sold. The Wildcats initial allotment of 12,000 tickets was sold by Monday, the day after the teams were announced. An additional 4,000 tickets were requested by Kentucky and nearly all of those have been sold.

Officials chose Kentucky (7-5) as the SEC representative over Arkansas (7-5), Georgia (7-5) and South Carolina (7-5) because they believed the Wildcats would sell the most tickets, said Music City Bowl President Scott Ramsey.

“With the game moving to two days after Christmas our rationale was that we were hoping to get as local and as regional fan base as possible,” Ramsey said. “That would give the most fans the opportunity to follow their teams. That proved to be the case. Kentucky obviously has fans who are great supporters of their program. We’re real pleased with how tickets are selling right now.”

Clemson officials said they had sold about 3,000 tickets.

Clemson (8-5) earned a berth after losing to Georgia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship game. Capacity at LP Field is 68,798. Music City Bowl officials said all lower bowl and club level seats have been sold. After Kentucky sells the additional tickets it requested the only available tickets will be upper level.

Kentucky played in the two Music City Bowls with the largest attendances, and Clemson played in one. Attendance for the 2007 Kentucky-Florida State game was 68,661 and the 2006 Kentucky-Clemson game was 68,024.

Ramsey said there was a bump in ticket sales last week before the teams
were announced after The Tennesseanreported Kentucky would play.

“After the news came out that it appeared likely Kentucky would be here I would say we sold about 4,000 tickets over a four-day period,” Ramsey said. “Typically that week there is a lot of speculative buying, but without a doubt it was more heavily concentrated Kentucky fans this year.”

Kentucky will return to practice Saturday and arrive in Nashville on Dec. 22. The Wildcats will practice Dec. 23-26 at Vanderbilt.

Clemson will return to practice Tuesday and arrive in Nashville on Dec. 23. The Tigers will practice Dec. 24-26 at Father Ryan.