JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The TaxSlayer Bowl confirmed at Wednesday’s press conference that it has sold over 60,000 tickets already for the game on Friday at the 67,164-seat EverBank Field.
Updated: After announcing over 60,000 tickets sold, the official attendance was listed at just 56,310 at the game on Friday.
It’s reasonable to think that more tickets have been sold in the last 24 hours since that announcement and a good chunk more will be sold the day of the game, putting the projected attendance somewhere in the low-to-mid 60s.
We know the attendance for every other SEC bowl game at this point except the Birmingham Bowl (which is all but certain to be lower than the TaxSlayer), so even with a conservative estimate of 61,000 total tickets sold for the TaxSlayer Bowl by kickoff tomorrow, UT will have the fourth-most attended bowl out of the 12 SEC bowl tie-ins with a clear majority expected to be UT fans. There’s an outside chance that it could make it all the way up to third if more than 65,706 show up, but that’s a little bit of a stretch at this point.
Tennessee’s bowl allotment of 8,000 tickets was sold almost instantly. As of Wednesday, Iowa had only sold a bit over 4,000 of their 8,000 tickets, according to reports. The rest of the tickets are sold by the TaxSlayer Bowl itself.
It’s easy to see how the Vols were able to position themselves as a good selection for a January bowl in Florida. It looks like Tennessee will have the highest attendance of any of the Florida bowl games and also the second-highest of the SEC bowl games not affiliated with the “New Year’s Six” or the College Football Playoffs.
2014-15 Attendance For Bowls With SEC Tie-ins:
TaxSlayer Bowl: 56,310
Birmingham Bowl: TBD
Citrus Bowl: 48,624
Outback Bowl: 44,023
Music City Bowl: 60,419
Liberty Bowl: 51,282
Belk Bowl: 41,671
Independence Bowl: 38,242
Texas Bowl: 71,115
Peach Bowl: 65,706
Orange Bowl: 58,211
National Semifinals/Sugar Bowl: 74,682
