COVID sacks Aggies - not coming to Gator Bowl

[acme54321]

Jax is getting good talk from the announcers today, and the pictures should make Visit Jacksonville happy.  And ... no (so far) downtown shots with the Landing.

Looking at the stands - is this a reduced capacity game?  I haven't been watching other bowl games to compare attendance, but ... wow ... lots of empty seats.

If it wasn't for the scoreboards on, you wouldn't have known anything was happening from the southbank... Or the northbank

[Charles Hunter]

Attendance   28,508

[MusicMan]

WF barely draws 28,000 to a home game.....

[jsjax37]

At some point the Gator Bowl needs to reassess their place in the bowl landscape and their contractual conference tie-ins.  As I understand it, one of the original reasons for bowl games was to provide an economic boost to the hospitality industry of participating communities during what would have otherwise been a slow period.  The Gator Bowl was pretty successful in that regard for many decades, however, it is obvious that the dynamic of bowl games has changed drastically in recent years.  Likely the existence of a CFB playoff system has relegated bowl games to an even more meaningless status in the total scheme of things.  It seems to me that the most successful non top tier bowls have been able to attract fans due to more localized or regional tie-ins.  Look at the Birmingham Bowl, Auburn v Houston, which I believe was a sellout.  Look at the Gasparilla Bowl, UF v UCF, 63,000 plus attendance.  The current contractual setup does not really seem to favor a compelling Gator Bowl matchup in most years.  If the Gator Bowl can't ascend to the top tier of bowls, a window which may have long since passed, perhaps more attention needs to be paid to size of potential fan bases, the excitement of a team to be here, more localized team selection, etc.  Even if Texas A&M had made it to the game, I got the distinct impression that they were not particularly excited about going to the Gator Bowl, and I doubt if there would have been 35,000 people in the stands.  Just my .02.