2024 Independence Bowl Best Attended Game in a Decade

This year was a trying one for Shreveport's Bowl game, the Independence Bowl. Originally, it was supposed to be a match up of Army versus Marshall. But, due to 'not having enough active players', Marshall bowed out of the game. This led the Indy Bowl folks to scramble to find a replacement. Eventually, they landed Louisiana Tech - which is always a good get for the local area, but not exactly the great match up between Conference Champions like was originally supposed to happen.

Then the weather forecast came out and did not look good. Strong storms, heavy rains, high winds...all factors that have in the past impacted attendance of the game. Army was a GREAT get, so I was a little worried that the Independence Bowl was in for another down year due to factors outside their control.

However, in the end, it all worked out. Army, the #19 school in the country, showed up and put a whooping on Louisiana Tech. And so did lots of fans.

Despite the weather, the last minute changes to the match up and everything else, the I-Bowl saw their best attended game in a decade.

According to reports, the December 28th prime time game saw 34,283 fans in the stands. The last time the Independence Bowl topped 34k fans was back on December 27th, 2014 for the game between South Carolina & Miami. This is an increase over last year's attendance of 33,071 and big jump over attendance to the 21 & 22 editions of the game which had crowds of 26,276 & 23,410.

Bowl games across the board are struggling to get fans in the building, so to see the Indy Bowl on an upward trend is a great thing for our community & college football as a whole. A great game just doesn't feel the same if there's nobody in the stadium. Will the Indy Bowl reach the attendance levels of the early 2000s that regularly saw crowds of 45,000+? Probably not. But that doesn't have as much to do with the Indy Bowl as much as the state of college football as a whole. Unless you're one of the playoff bowl games, you're fighting for fans.

But, if the fine folks at the Independence Bowl continue to bring in great matchups featuring teams in the Top 25 in the country, I think they can continue to brings people to town and put fans in the stands. Our game may not have a catchy gimmick like the Pop Tart Bowl (you got to admit, they do a great job marketing that thing and getting people's attention), but when we have great matchups, we seem to perform well and get some good national attention.

The 2025 edition of the game is set to feature a match up between the Big 12 & Conference USA. Which could see (hypothetically) a match up of Colorado & Tulane. Or Utah versus Jacksonville State. Both of which could be fun. I mean there's a LOT of fun possibilities here. So as fun as the 2024 Indy Bowl was, 2025 could be even better.