Temple Football Now Philadelphia's Hottest Sports Ticket

The hottest ticket in Philadelphia sports today does not get fans into an Eagles or Flyers game.

The hottest ticket in town is Temple football.

Ticketmaster.com reported some very interesting news early this week for Temple's season finale home game against Kent State. At least 10 rows of end zone tickets were sold in a matter of hours on Monday morning alone.

That's more tickets on one day than any other day this fall, and it came on what usually is the slowest day of the week.

That represents more tickets sold in one day this week than for any of the town's pro teams.

Since the Eagles and Flyers are sold out and tickets are way down for Sixers games, Temple's final home game is the hottest ticket in town.

Who knows what moved that many seats in one day? Maybe it's the eight straight wins; maybe it's the head coach's tireless efforts promoting the program.

Probably a little bit of both.

Temple head coach Al Golden went on an Eagles pregame radio show and spread the Owl gospel to a very large listening audience on Sunday afternoon.

I've always been a strong proponent that word of mouth is the best advertising.
It's been that way since the caveman found out that rubbing two sticks together could start a fire.

So Golden's radio appearance on ESPN 97.5 The Fan combined that word of mouth advertising with mass media, and it didn't hurt and may have helped a lot.

The show, hosted by Temple grad Harry Mayes, has roughly 200,000 listeners every Sunday, so Golden spreading the Temple gospel had to have an impact.

All indications are that a large crowd will be seeing off Temple's remarkable senior class for Saturday's 1 p.m. kickoff against Kent State at Lincoln Financial Field.

Temple has a football team that has won eight straight games for the first time since 1973.

It has a team that needs to beat Kent State in order to move a step closer to clinching a MAC East championship. In fact, the Owls might be able to celebrate that title on the field with a Northern Illinois win over Ohio combined with a win over Kent State. 

The Owls have an electrifying running back, Bernard Pierce, who is third in the nation in rushing.

All of these things help put fannies in the seats.

The program has received positive mentions in Sports Illustrated and ESPN in recent weeks.

People are beginning to notice and beginning to literally buy into the hype.

Who knows what the crowd will be, but the school has 33,000 full-time students, 260,000 living alumni (150,000 of those living in a 50-mile radius of the stadium) and 5,000 full-time employees.

Do the math.

If only a small fraction of that number is motivated to attend, it could add up to a big day for Temple football at the box office as well as the field and the league standings.