Tucson takes ownership of Arizona Bowl in Year 2, and that's a good thing

In business, they call it a post-mortem, a dedicated analysis of what worked and what didn’t.

So when asked when planning began in earnest for the 2016 Arizona Bowl, chairman Ali Farhang laughed.

“When was our game last year Dec. 27th? OK, then, Dec. 28th,” Farhang said. “We had a whole list of everything we wanted to do better with the luxury of time.”

Last year’s Arizona Bowl was still just an aspiration, Farhang said. A lot had been talked about, but nothing formalized. It wasn’t until early October, roughly 90 days out, that the first-year bowl game was a full go.

Plans were made efficiently, but hastily. Contracts were signed quickly.

This time, the Arizona Bowl committee has had a year to put things into place, to learn from what went right and what went wrong. Organizers know what this bowl game is and can be.

“The purpose of the Arizona Bowl is not just to play a football game,” said Farhang, also a local attorney and assistant football coach at Salpointe Catholic High School. “Look at the Sun Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, many others, where it’s about an event, a community celebration, where everyone has an ownership of the game.”

For everyone in Tucson to get ownership of the event, that ownership literally had to change hands. Farhang and company set up a local nonprofit early last year to take control of the event from the Arizona Sports and Entertainment Commission.

The committee also bolstered its ranks in early 2016 by broadening its advisory board and adding more full-time support staff, including executive director Mike Feder, who has been involved in the Tucson sports scene for decades.

“Last year, it was really about getting your feet wet, just getting everything started and laying a path for the future,” Feder said. “They did a tremendous job knowing the heavy lifting took place the last two or three months before the game. That’s the true definition of insanity. Yet the game went off well.”

Feder said the roughly 20,000 fans in attendance last season marked the second-highest figure for a first-year bowl, and the bowl officials are hoping for 30,000-plus in Year 2.

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Bowl officials have stressed the importance of community involvement and support for the game, and this year’s matchup — featuring 9-3 Air Force, and its local ties to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and 6-6 South Alabama — should drum up local interest.

Eventually, the goal is to get high attendance figures no matter the two opponents.

“A good example is a year ago in Las Vegas: They had BYU and Utah, and the game was sold out before they even announced ticket sales,” Feder said.

“That’s magical, and not something you count on. The day we start depending on our two teams to determine our success, we’re going to fail. There’s no promises. You have to get local community to buy in.”

Part of that process, Farhang says, is to offer the top amenities Tucson has to offer, and to take advantage of the city’s natural advantages.

Last year’s game kicked off at 6 p.m., and it was a bit too cold in late-December for fan’s liking. As a result, this year’s game is at 3 p.m., and, Farhang said, sources have told him it should be “72 and sunny.”

Two resorts — Westin La Paloma and the J.W. Marriott Starr Pass — will again host the two teams. If the experience was anything like last year’s, it’ll be a hit.

“The Nevada coach last year, Brian Polian, came up to us and said the VIP was as good as any BCS bowl game,” Farhang said. “Utilizing the best of Tucson was really important.”

The Gin Blossoms will play this year’s pregame VIP party, and an “outrageous” downtown block party is planned. The theme? “New Year’s Eve comes a little early,” Farhang said.

Come January, maybe Farhang and Feder will have time to relax. Until then, they’ll be bundles of stress, like last year, when they somehow pulled off a bowl game with roughly 90 days of planning.

“We had three months to do three years’ worth of work, but when we were done, we realized we’d had three years of work done already,” Farhang said. “It was difficult for everybody, but we rallied.”