Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021 | 1:32 p.m.
The first Las Vegas Bowl contested at Allegiant Stadium will feature a college football program that loves traveling to Las Vegas: Wisconsin.
The Badgers of the Big 10 Conference will host Arizona State at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 30 in the 30th game in bowl history. Don’t be surprised if it’s the best-attended — thanks to the 65,000-capacity Allegiant, and of course, those fanatic Wisconsin fans. The 2006 game between BYU and Oregon established the attendance record with 44,615 fans.
When Wisconsin played at UNLV in 2007 and 2010, its supporters helped fill Sam Boyd Stadium to capacity.
“We all know what they are capable of doing,” said John Saccenti, the game’s executive director. “Their fan base is incredibly excited and I have no doubt that not only will this be a great matchup on the field with two 8-4 teams — both ranked at different times throughout the year — but two incredibly, incredibly diehard fan bases.”
Wisconsin fans flooded the city a few weeks ago when its basketball team played in the Maui Invitational, which was staged here instead of Hawaii because of the pandemic.
“Our fans have a great tradition of support in Vegas, even as recently as a couple weeks ago when our men’s basketball team won the Maui Invitational,” said Chris McIntosh, the Wisconsin director of athletics, in a statement. “Allegiant Stadium is a tremendous venue and I know our players will have a great bowl experience.”
This will be Arizona State’s third all-time appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, also participating in 2011 and 2018.
“The Las Vegas Bowl invitation provides a tremendous opportunity for our team and coaching staff to compete against a quality Big Ten program and close out the 2021 season,” coach Herm Edwards said in a statement. “We look forward to representing Arizona State University and the Sun Devil fans in Las Vegas. We are very excited to be able to play in Allegiant Stadium.
A bowl game is a reward for a good season and I am grateful for our players and coaching staff to be able to enjoy this experience.”
The game was supposed to make its debut last December at Allegiant, but was canceled because of the pandemic. As part of the new-and-improved bowl, it will host either a team from the Big 10 or SEC conference against a team from the Pac-12. Previously, the Mountain West champion was slotted for the game.
“That’s the thing with this stadium and this destination: These teams were going to their conferences and begging to come here and we were able to pull it off,” Saccenti said.
Saccenti said there are approximately 19,000 tickets still available to sell, and “when you have those two fan bases, I have a funny feeling thinking we’re not going to have trouble moving those.”
