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GALLERYFURNITURE.COM BOWL HISTORY| MESSAGE BOARD 

Bowl officials back off earlier ticket numbers
Associated Press

HOUSTON -- Ticket sales for the first Galleryfurniture.com Bowl, set for next week in the Astrodome, didn't get off to as good a start as first believed.

Bowl president Jerry Ippoliti announced Dec. 7 that 28,000 tickets had been sold. A recount showed only 4,200 tickets were purchased.

"I'm sorry that we made a mistake or that Jerry made the mistake in the ticket count," said Jim McIngvale, whose Houston furniture company is sponsor of the game.

"But I think if we hustle and promote in the next (few days) we can still have a great attendance between 30,000 and 40,000, get off to a good start and make sure everybody has a good time."

Friday, game officials had no new ticket sales estimate.

The game will match Texas Tech (7-5) against East Carolina (7-4). Each team was allotted 9,000 tickets, but East Carolina asked for and received 11,000. Tech officials said they expect to sell about 10,000 tickets.

"I was a little bit upset about it (miscount)," McIngvale said. "I asked Jerry where he came up with that rather outlandish figure. He said he'd gotten it from the ticket people, that he'd gotten some bad information."




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