Thursday, December 20, 2001

Seattle Bowl looking to
settle for half-full stadium

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Star-Bulletin wire services

SEATTLE >> Seattle officials envisioned a stadium filled with college football fans when they lured the Oahu Bowl away in April.

However, Safeco Field may be half-empty for next Thursday's inaugural Seattle Bowl between Stanford and Georgia Tech because of circumstances they never anticipated.

With people reluctant to fly following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, and the U.S. economy mired in recession, many bowls are struggling to attract out-of-town fans.

"People are a little hesitant to travel," said Rob Sullivan, public and community relations manager for the Seattle Bowl. "Combined with the economy, this isn't the best of years to be putting on an event, especially your first one."

While the four Bowl Championship Series games (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta and Rose) are already sold out, many of the other 21 postseason games are struggling to draw fans.

Last night, for instance, the inaugural New Orleans Bowl between Colorado State and North Texas drew 18,898 fans to the 72,000-seat Superdome.

Safeco Field, home of baseball's Seattle Mariners, has been reconfigured for football and can accommodate 45,000 fans for the Seattle Bowl. Officials only expect about 25,000 to attend the game, though.

The crowd would be much bigger if the hometown University of Washington Huskies or nearby Pacific-10 rivals Washington State or Oregon were playing in the game. But the Seattle Bowl only had the fourth pick from the Pac-10 and had to settle for Stanford.

Although the Cardinal are 9-2 and ranked ninth by the BCS, the campus is 800 miles from Seattle, which means most of its fans have to fly to the game -- something that became undesirable after Sept. 11.

"That's the big thing right now -- the hassle of going through airport security, in addition to the uneasiness of travel these days," Sullivan said. "It's definitely a concern, but hopefully we'll be able to get them over that fear and get them up here."

Brad Cilley, president and general manager of Northwest Travel Inc. in Seattle, said he planned to sell 800 travel packages to University of Washington fans for the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

After three weeks of slow sales, he's now hoping to sell half that many for the Huskies' Dec. 28 game against Texas.