Almost 8,000 tickets for the International Bowl went unsold by Ball State University, a school official said.
Ticket Manager Rob Richards said Ball State "used just over 2,000 tickets" for Saturday's football game against Rutgers University. The Mid-American Conference had a contract with the International Bowl in which the participating school, Ball State, was responsible for 10,000 tickets at $40 each.
At $40 a piece, the almost 8,000 tickets remaining from Ball State's portion of the tickets could have cost the university $320,000.
Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tom Collins could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In an interview Monday, before the ticket count was finalized, Collins said Ball State would lose money for the bowl trip. It will take about two to three weeks for the final figures for the entire trip to be determined, he said in the interview.
While almost 80 percent of Ball State's tickets for the International Bowl were not sold, Richards said he was impressed with the number of tickets sold.
"I thought for the location being in Toronto and the timing, students not being in school, the attendance was good," Richards said.
In Monday's interview, Collins also said he was pleased by the number of fans at the game.
Of the tickets sold, slightly more than 200 of them went to the Alumni Association's travel package, Richards said. Ball State also sold about 50 to 70 tickets in Toronto to Ball State fans and Canadians, Richards said.
In addition to the fans who bought tickets to attend the game, Richards said about 500 tickets were purchased and donated back to the university for use by people such as the band.
Ball State gave its remaining tickets back to the International Bowl, Richards said. The International Bowl then gave them to groups such as youth football teams in Canada, he said.
Considering it was the first bowl game for Ball State in 11 years, Richards said, he thought the showing of the Cardinals' fans was good and hopefully it will get better in the future.
The International Bowl in general also did well with the number of fans at the game, Richards said.
"I thought that game went over well," he said. "With the attendance being over 31,000 in just the second year of the bowl, that's pretty good."
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