Sugar Bowl, New Year's Eve festivities drawing large crowds to New Orleans - The Advocate

New Orleans is reaping big benefits from the double selling point of New Year’s Eve festivities coupled with an attractive Allstate Sugar Bowl match-up, hospitality officials say, with hotel rooms nearing capacity as ticket sales continued for Tuesday’s game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

The 84-year-old Sugar Bowl, which annually pits two high-profile college football teams against each other, in some years serves as either the national championship game or a precursor to it.

Although that's not the case this year, the two teams competing — the Texas Longhorns, from the Big 12, and Georgia Bulldogs, from the Southeastern Conference — are bringing with them loyal fan bases known for their willingness to travel out-of-state. That is helping to push ticket sales to near the level of last year’s sold-out College Football Playoff semifinal contest between Alabama and Clemson, officials said.

Hotel booking figures suggest that some tourists arrived in town ahead of the New Year’s Eve festivities and are staying through the Sugar Bowl, according to Mark Romig, the president and CEO of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp.

“You have two terrific fan bases coming to town, and they have historically traveled to all bowls,” Romig said. “On top of that, New Orleans has historically been considered a top destination for New Year’s and for this time of year — there’s lots of attractions, lots of things to do.”

New Year’s events include the annual fleur-de-lis drop at midnight, expanded tricentennial fireworks displays, the Big Night New Orleans gala and the Allstate Sugar Bowl New Year’s Eve Parade.

For the third consecutive year, New Orleans will be on prime-time display in front of millions of television viewers around the country as Jackson Square again serves as a backdrop for “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest,” which will be broadcast from New Orleans after the ball drops in New York's Times Square at midnight there.

It’s also the third year that Don Lemon and Brooke Baldwin will handle New Year’s Eve duties in New Orleans for CNN. For the past two years, Lemon has made headlines for partying while broadcasting live from Frenchmen Street, which in the 2016-17 edition came complete with an on-air ear piercing.

Natasha Carr, of the Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association, confirmed that this year’s multiple attractions are translating into tourism dollars, with local hotels boasting occupancy rates of between 95 and 98 percent from Friday night through Tuesday.

The fact that tourists are staying into the week is proof of a strong Sugar Bowl match-up, officials say. Unlike the Super Bowl, which can be counted on to draw an overwhelming crowd every year, the Sugar Bowl's appeal tends to be directly tied to the teams’ fan bases and their proximity to New Orleans.

This year, experts anticipated that Texas and Georgia fans would live up to their reputations by showing up in droves, and spending money while they do it, according to Jeff Hundley, the Sugar Bowl’s chief operating officer.

“We have two traditional powerhouse football programs and alumni bases that are large in number and have proven over time that they will travel to support their teams,” Hundley said. “We expect them to be enthusiastic.”

As of Friday afternoon, ticket sales for the football game were nearing 70,000, Hundley said.

That was still a bit below last year's tally, when 72,360 tickets were sold, but it was well ahead of the 2017 game, when just 54,000 tickets were bought for the Auburn-Oklahoma clash.

This year's pairing offers advantages for fans who want to drive to the game. New Orleans is roughly eight hours from both Austin and Athens, Georgia — close enough to reach in a day, but far enough that most fans will want to spend at least one night away from home.

“Proximity always helps," Hundley said.

Under current rules, the two semifinal games in the Bowl Championship Series rotate among several bowls. The Sugar Bowl is in the queue for one of those two games every third year — but not this one.

Still, Hundley said ticket sales were expected to grow throughout the weekend as more fans made last-minute plans for the game.

“It’s been an interesting crowd in that it’s been a late-purchasing crowd,” he said.

Regardless of how many seats are filled in the end, it’s already good news for New Orleans' hospitality sector, and much different from some years past, when low-ranking teams left thousands of tickets unclaimed.

All in all, tourism leaders say, a $200 million economic impact is typical for a game like this, as visitors often stay in the city for up to five days, spending money on hotel rooms, bars, restaurants and shopping.

The game has become a reliable economic engine for the city since the first Sugar Bowl was played at Tulane Stadium in 1935. It moved in 1974 to the Superdome, where it has been played every year except a post-Hurricane Katrina stint in 2006 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Over the years, planned festivities have expanded to include a tailgate party called the Allstate Sugar Bowl Fan Jam at Champions Square. The free party begins three hours before kickoff and lasts until the game begins.

Things look bright for next year’s Sugar Bowl, too, according to Romig.

Under the new playoff format, cities bid to host the title game. New Orleans beat out five other cities to clinch the 2020 title game, which will bring the championship contest back to the city for the first time since 2012.

That game is slated to take place the week after the Sugar Bowl, which means lots more revenue for the city’s tourism industry.

“I imagine if you want to be in the sports capital of the U.S. for that week, you will be in New Orleans,” Romig said.

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