Reported Military Bowl attendance lowest in 7 years.

The reported Military Bowl attendance Thursday was 17K and change.  Jon Solomon at Alabama.com said that it was the smallest crowd bowl game since Nevada and Central Florida played IN THE HAWAII BOWL in 2005.  For the record, he is assuming that there were actually 17K in the stands.

It was a tough year for the Military Bowl, which was designed to feature Army against an ACC team, which would probably draw a decent crowd.  Even the ACC team would help.  But you put BG (not a prolific drawing team) and San Jose State from all the way across the US and with worse attendance than BG (according to Solomon) and it is a tough road for the bowl.

His article also notes that the attendance has been falling at bowls this year.  Just to make a point....these bowls are less spectator sporting events than they are TV shows.  ESPN needs programming (and they own parts of most of the bowls), the stadiums are sitting there, tourism boards get involved and the teams want to play and that's why they exist.

And yes, people do watch on TV and ESPN can sell the whole bowl schedule to advertisers as a package and they have to have something on the air, and what would it have been Thursday at 3?