Phoenix Hits the Jackpot this Bowl Season

Every December, cities from San Diego to Shreveport and Memphis to Miami wait patiently for Cornhuskers and Yellow Jackets, Bulldogs and Hurricanes to arrive.

What I'm talking about here, are teams and fans that head to bowl games. Money gets spent, bodies get tanned, and in between some football gets played.

Cities make big bucks for hosting these bowl games. A city like Atlanta estimates that the annual Chik-fil-A Bowl held at the Georgia Dome brings about $35 million to the Atlanta economy. So it's not just the fans and players that love these bowls, It's the hotels, restaurants, taxi drivers, and street vendors that like the influx of visitors each year.

These year, one city is going to reap the bowl benefits three times over.

Phoenix is that city, and before Monday night's BCS Championship Game, Tempe hosted the Insight Bowl between Iowa and Missouri, and another Phoenix suburb, Glendale hosted the Fiesta Bowl between Connecticut and Oklahoma on New Year's Day.

The bowl matchups in the Phoenix area were a little something for everyone. "When you look at this set of bowl games," said John Eaton, clinical associate professor at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, "I think you have a much better Insight Bowl matchup, a Fiesta Bowl matchup that isn’t as exciting, and the BCS title game that will generate interest and bring in a lot of people from outside the town."

Bowls have the interest of the cities they represent when looking at which teams to invite to their bowls. Phoenix landed the Iowa Hawkeyes, who bring a ton of fans to games, Oklahoma, who also travels well, and an on the rise Missouri team. The one bad egg they landed was Connecticut who doesn't travel with any sort of fan base.

When the East Valley of Arizona last hosted three bowl game back in 2006-07 — the Carey School of Business estimated an overall economic impact of $401.7 million, including $171.5 million for the BCS championship game between Florida and Ohio State. Fiesta Bowl chairman Duane Woods said that he is hopeful that number can be topped this time around.

"We could see three times the stadium size, based on the demand we’ve had for the championship game," said Woods, who added that the Fiesta Bowl is hoping to add about 1,300 seats to University of Phoenix Stadium (capacity 73,000) for the BCS title game.

Michael Martin, executive vice president of the Tempe Convention & Visitors Bureau, said retailers in the city are especially excited about the upgraded Insight Bowl pairing. The Insight moved up the bowl pecking order among the Big Ten and Big 12 conferences, enabling it to select 12th-ranked Missouri and Iowa.

Being a BCS bowl, the Fiesta Bowl has a little less latitiude on who they can pick, but most years it gets a top drawer matchup. "We always try to make the right decision based on rankings and how teams perform for their conferences," Woods said. "Fortunately for us, we’ve developed a reputation as a bowl people want to come to. I think the schools know when they commit to coming how important it is to get their fan base out here."

The Fiesta Bowl ended up being a bit of a challenge. Big 12 champion Oklahoma was visiting for the third time in five years, and Connecticut struggled to sell tickets. During the Fiesta Bowl week some hotel operators reported blocks of rooms that wouldnt be rented, and tickets were widely available on internet sites like StubHub and TicketsNow for around $15.

The BCS title game between Auburn and Oregon sells itself. Both teams will bring large groups of fans, the national media will flow into town, and it appears lots of money will be spent. Hotels report they are busy, restaurants are advising you make reservations and people are all over the tourist spots.

One call I made to a Waffle House in Phoenix summed up the whole bowl experience. I asked the manager who he wanted to win the game. He replied by saying: "Which ever team will celebrate the most and hit the Waffle House late that night, or in the morning."