Get your Texas Bowl tickets here

Get your Texas Bowl tickets here

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Rice fans had better act quickly, because the opportunity to buy Texas Bowl tickets through the school will soon be gone.

Tickets are moving out the door for the Dec. 30 game between the 9-3 Owls and the 9-3 Western Michigan Broncos, who will meet at Reliant Stadium at 7 p.m. Dec. 30.

	ANTHONY VASSER

Rice benefits most from its Texas Bowl appearance through the sales of its ticket allotment. Keep in mind that Rice and Western Michigan get the best seats for their fans and at the best prices.

This will be the eighth bowl game in Rice history and the fourth for the Broncos, who finished second behind Ball State in the Mid-American Conference’s tough Western Division. It will also be the first time the schools have met on the gridiron.

Tickets for the bowl start at $25, with special packages available for alumni that include a rally towel.

Rice fans who’ll settle for nothing less than the best can pony up $1,000 for the official bowl package, which comes with two prime, field-level seats and a host of goodies that includes a commemorative football autographed by the team.

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While tickets are available from the Texas Bowl itself, you’ll get a better seat and get it for less by taking advantage of the remaining stock of Rice tickets, said Marc Laney, assistant athletic director and director of ticketing operations. He said the highest-priced tickets among the 11,000 granted to Rice are sold out, but seats at $25 and $40 and a few at $50, as well as the alumni packages, are still available.

”The response by Rice fans and the Houston community has been tremendous,” said Laney. ”With the team at 9-3 and a chance to end up among the top 25 in the nation, everybody’s pretty excited.

”Our alumni have really stepped up to support us, and many of them are taking sponsorship packages, through which they buy blocks of tickets that we give to students on the day of the game.”

Bowl officials claimed that in early December, even before the opponents were announced, more than 25,000 tickets in addition to those committed to Rice and Western Michigan had been sold for this year’s game.

That’s no surprise, as it has become a premiere event for Houston sports fans. In the first Texas Bowl in 2006, more than 52,000 fans saw Rutgers beat Kansas State 37-10, while last year, Texas Christian University defeated the University of Houston 20-13 before more than 62,000.

The game, which will be televised live nationally on NFL Network and broadcast nationally by Westwood One radio (locally on KTRH 740 AM), will be preceded by TexFest, billed as the ”ultimate pregame party” and followed by the largest holiday fireworks show in Texas, according to bowl officials.

Over the last two years, the bowl has generated more than $120,000 for the DePelchin Children’s Center, which is this year’s beneficiary as well.