Nearly 50,000 tickets sold for Music City Bowl

Almost 50,000 tickets have been sold for the Dec. 30 Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, which will feature Texas A&M against Louisville at Nissan Stadium.

The pace has not been far off from last year when the bowl pitted traditional powers Notre Dame and LSU. At the same point last year about 55,000 tickets had been sold.

Attendance for last year's game was 60,419. Average attendance over the first 17 years for the game is 55,031.

"We're just a shade under 50,000 tickets right now," Music City Bowl President and CEO Scott Ramsey said. "We're on track to have a great crowd. Hopefully the weather will hold. Especially the Louisville folks will be able to make some last-minute decisions to come down for a couple of days and be a part of the game."

Louisville already has sold its allotment of 7,000 tickets and requested an additional 2,500, Ramsey said. But Texas A&M has not sold all of its 7,500-ticket allotment.

"We're hopeful Texas A&M will bring their full allotment," Ramsey said. "If they do then we're going to have a great environment and we're going to have a great impact. Because from what we're seeing right now (Texas A&M) fans are going to be staying for several days and a lot of the Louisville fans are as well. On top of that there are day-trippers and locals, so we've got a good blend so far. If we get north of 50,000 we'll be really pleased."

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Capacity at Nissan Stadium is 68,798.

Ramsey said between 22,000-24,000 tickets were sold before the announcement of the participating teams, which came on Dec. 6.

"We're about right where we expected to be in ticket sales," Ramsey said. "Louisville is so close and they were really excited. I think just because of their regionality we're feeling a little more impact from them. Texas A&M is probably one of the farthest teams in all of our conferences away from us."

Both teams will arrive in Nashville on Dec. 26.

Texas A&M will practice at Vanderbilt and Louisville at Father Ryan High School.

For tickets visit musiccitybowl.com.

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 and on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.

College football bowl TV schedule, scores

MUSIC CITY BOWL

LOUISVILLE (7-5) VS. TEXAS A&M (8-4)

When: Dec. 30, 6 p.m.

TV/Radio: ESPN/102.5-FM