Capital One Bowl Reaches Fastest Sellout in 62-Year History

Despite a delayed announcement of its teams, the 2008 Capital One Bowl has reached a sellout Florida Citrus Sports Executive Director Steve Hogan announced today. The bowl reached its normal capacity of 65,438 less than 13 hours after Florida and Michigan were announced as this year�s teams and sold above that capacity as temporary bleacher seats were sold out hours later.

“This record sellout is evidence that Orlando is a hotbed for college football,” said Florida Citrus Sports Executive Director Steve Hogan. “Marquee matchups like Michigan and Florida and their tremendous fans are what make the Capital One Bowl the top non-BCS bowl game in the country. Now with two more top college teams in the Champs Sports Bowl, we are proud of what these two games do for the Central Florida economy.�

In 2004-05, the Capital One Bowl featuring Iowa and LSU sold out by December 6 after the first team was announced on November 30. This year�s game had teams announced at approximately 8:00 p.m. last night and all seats in the stadium were sold, as well as additional temporary end zone bleachers seats, by mid-afternoon today.

The attendance for the 2005 game was 70,229, sixth-highest in bowl history. The highest attendance ever at a Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium game was 72,940 when Florida played Penn State in 1998. The stadium put in a new, larger, state-of-the-art scoreboard a year later, thus limiting the number of seats it was possible to install in the north end zone. The attendance for that 2005 Iowa-LSU matchup was the largest since the record-setting game of 1998.

In addition to its success selling Capital One Bowl tickets, Florida Citrus Sports� other bowl game � the Champs Sports Bowl � is on a record pace, having already sold over 3,000 tickets more than last year�s game. Though the Capital One game is sold out, fans can still purchase tickets to the game between Boston College and Michigan State by calling Ticketmaster or ordering online (www.ticketmaster.com).

The Capital One Bowl takes place on January 1, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. and is televised on ABC. The Champs Sports Bowl is held on December 28, 2007 at 5:00 p.m. and airs nationally on ESPN.