Bowl Game Experiences

[texasrobster1997]

I’ve come to the conclusion that these bowl games are expensive, high risk endeavors. Curious of how others experiences have been. I’ll do my bowl “Yelp” reviews of the bowls I’ve been to below.

Fiesta Bowl 2010
2 stars-good price. Weather was great. Stadium sucked. Took off 2 stars for fake punt that everyone in the stadium knew was coming other than our coach. Having Boise state’s fans in my face for the 1.5 hours it took to get out of parking lot was the worst.

Rose Bowl 2011
4.5 stars-Awesome venue. Fantastic game. Only damper was the flight. Wind shear was so bad that our pilot made three FAILED attempts to land in Amarillo and we had to divert to another airport, wait 30 minutes then return to Amarillo. With connections, all in all we made SIX landing attempts. Wife is deathly motion sick and missed parade due to feeling so bad. I’ve never been so scared to be on a plane, hence only 4.5 stars

Alamo Bowl 2016
4 stars-price was fantastic. Drove there. Accommodations great. Amazing game. Weather and stadium sucked balls. Getting out of that stadium was a fire hazard. Felt like Seoul on Halloween.

NCG 2023
1.5 stars-expensive. LA is not an easy city to explore. Weather sucked balls. No great restaurants near hotel or SoFi. Hotel linguini gave me the squirts all night. Game was horrific. As a fan I had to make the trip, but wish I could have “unsubscribed” from the whole thing after the first quarter.

 

[hometown frog]

That $5B sieve of a stadium sucked. I get that it doesn’t really rain much in LA but that entire complex is totally unprepared for a rain event. Between the leaking roof, the open air rain tunnel effectively pulling all the rain inside, the exits becoming ankle deep runoff flowing rivers to walk thru leaving to the miserable signage and fencing trying to walk to either the rideshare lot or the Metro shuttles, I’ll never go to another event at SoFi as long as I live. I’ll only say this once, Jerry Jones’ stadium runs circles around this one.

 

[The original ArgyleFrog]

That $5B sieve of a stadium sucked. I get that it doesn’t really rain much in LA but that entire complex is totally unprepared for a rain event. Between the leaking roof, the open air rain tunnel effectively pulling all the rain inside, the exits becoming ankle deep runoff flowing rivers to walk thru leaving to the miserable signage and fencing trying to walk to either the rideshare lot or the Metro shuttles, I’ll never go to another event at SoFi as long as I live. I’ll only say this once, Jerry Jones’ stadium runs circles around this one.

Wow.. worse than it looked on TV. I saw rain coming in sideways (insert Forrest Gump joke) on TV and thought “oh my God that stadium is a fail”.

 

[Hoosierfrog]

That $5B sieve of a stadium sucked. I get that it doesn’t really rain much in LA but that entire complex is totally unprepared for a rain event. Between the leaking roof, the open air rain tunnel effectively pulling all the rain inside, the exits becoming ankle deep runoff flowing rivers to walk thru leaving to the miserable signage and fencing trying to walk to either the rideshare lot or the Metro shuttles, I’ll never go to another event at SoFi as long as I live. I’ll only say this once, Jerry Jones’ stadium runs circles around this one.

I’m not sure the stadium was built with cataclysmic rain events in mind. Rain in in LA is like snow in Housto, it just doesn’t happen much…

 

[hometown frog]

Wow.. worse than it looked on TV. I saw rain coming in sideways (insert Forrest Gump joke) on TV and thought “oh my God that stadium is a fail”.

At one point we were as wet as we were at the Baylor/TCU game a couple years ago at Amon Carter

 

[Frogs1983]

At one point we were as wet as we were at the Baylor/TCU game a couple years ago at Amon Carter

Yeh, but you weren't as cold. I Was at that Baylor game, almost caught pneumonia . Still, rain constantly peppering you is no fun, cold or warm.

 

[Eight]

Wow.. worse than it looked on TV. I saw rain coming in sideways (insert Forrest Gump joke) on TV and thought “oh my God that stadium is a fail”.

sounds a bit like the hole in the roof at texas stadium that sounded like a great idea and modeled well, but didn't really work as well in real life, created new problems such as horrible shadows and terrible airflow, and the fix just wasn't economically feasible

 

[Horny 4 Life]

I generally agree with your ratings.

Even if TCU had won the game this would've been a 2 star, at best, experience. We had a great time with family and friends in LA on Sunday.

Monday was a [ Finebaum ]show. The rideshare situation was rough, but we expected it to be. The pre and post game crowd flow was brutal. The stadium clearly couldn't handle that weather. I saw people wiping out on the concourses on the 3rd and 4th level. One UGA fan, probably around 55 and obviously out of shape, but not drinking that I could tell, almost wiped out going down the stairs from 500 to 400. UGA fans were just as obnoxious as I expected. At least there were tons of beer vendors around to numb the pain a little.

We had to leave at the beginning of the 4th because our hotel parking garage was under a flash flood watch and they advised that we move our vehicles. That's the first time, win or lose, that I think I've ever left a game early.

Oh well, at least my wife got to spend a bunch of our money on Rodeo Drive, so she was happy. Not looking forward to these credit card bills! Lol

 

[Zubaz]

In order:

2001 Galleryfurniture.com Bowl - 1.5 Stars. My first time in the historic Astrodome for one of (if not the) last college football game played there. That's pretty much the only thing preventing this one from going in to negative star category. Downside was I had my wisdom teeth out 3 days before the game and was still in pain, plus the Aggies put a whooping on us. Friggin Casey.

2002 Liberty Bowl - 2 Stars. Miserable weather, bad stadium, pretty boring game, I ended up getting food poisoning somewhere in Memphis that hit me like a ton of bricks in the 3rd quarter. Puked my guts out for 2 days straight. We won though so that's nice.

2005 Houston Bowl - 3 stars. Just kinda there. Our first bowl against a Big 12 opponent, our first Top 10 season, but kind of blah overall.

2010 Fiesta Bowl - 2 stars. Corporate, overpriced, bad opponent (just from a brand standpoint, that Boise team was obviously legit), we lost. If it wasn't a major bowl this would be my least favorite ever. Terrible.

2011 Rose Bowl - 5 Stars. Can't get any better.

2016 Alamo Bowl - 4 Stars. I didn't have any of the bad experiences at the Alamodome that others did, but the limitations of that stadium do take it down a notch. Other than that it was pretty epic. Nice pre-game at the Menger, good tailgate despite the weather, it was a good trip.

2022 Fiesta Bowl - 4.75 Stars. Night and day from the first go around. Not sure how much of that was us being there before so knowing where to go and what to avoid vs how much was the result of the game, but it's neck and neck with the Rose Bowl in my opinion of TCU bowl games.

 

[HornyWartyToad]

I’ve come to the conclusion that these bowl games are expensive, high risk endeavors. Curious of how others experiences have been. I’ll do my bowl “Yelp” reviews of the bowls I’ve been to below.

Fiesta Bowl 2010
2 stars-good price. Weather was great. Stadium sucked. Took off 2 stars for fake punt that everyone in the stadium knew was coming other than our coach. Having Boise state’s fans in my face for the 1.5 hours it took to get out of parking lot was the worst.

Rose Bowl 2011
4.5 stars-Awesome venue. Fantastic game. Only damper was the flight. Wind shear was so bad that our pilot made three FAILED attempts to land in Amarillo and we had to divert to another airport, wait 30 minutes then return to Amarillo. With connections, all in all we made SIX landing attempts. Wife is deathly motion sick and missed parade due to feeling so bad. I’ve never been so scared to be on a plane, hence only 4.5 stars

Alamo Bowl 2016
4 stars-price was fantastic. Drove there. Accommodations great. Amazing game. Weather and stadium sucked balls. Getting out of that stadium was a fire hazard. Felt like Seoul on Halloween.

NCG 2023
1.5 stars-expensive. LA is not an easy city to explore. Weather sucked balls. No great restaurants near hotel or SoFi. Hotel linguini gave me the squirts all night. Game was horrific. As a fan I had to make the trip, but wish I could have “unsubscribed” from the whole thing after the first quarter.

I mean not trying to be racist or nothin but why you staying some place called "Hotel linguini" that can't be good. Lucky you only got the squirts.

 

[Sweat Equity]

I’ll only say this once, Jerry Jones’ stadium runs circles around this one.

I would wager you might say it again.

 

[Strat Frog]

It was mainly all good, just expensive, and LA has a hell of a homeless problem…

 

[Bruce Berry]

Spent part of this afternoon paying homage to The Lizard King at Venice Beach. Spiritually healing for me.

Ran into several groups of Georgia fans. All very nice and complimentary.

 

[Goo]

I had a great experience. I feel like LA has better customer service than Dallas. Great drivers, waiters, hotel, food, etc

Stadium leaked and had poor design for crowd. But pageantry was awesome.

Experience was hurt by poor team performance and rain, that’s not in la control

 

[SoonerFrogs]

I see no references to Shreveport. No way in hell LA was worse than that. Then there’s Mobile….ick.

 

[FrogBall09]

Yeh, but you weren't as cold. I Was at that Baylor game, almost caught pneumonia . Still, rain constantly peppering you is no fun, cold or warm.

Want to bet

SoFi is the biggest POS stadium I have ever been in - truly lipstick on a pig

And how does the NC game only have a few merchandise concessions and run out of stuff before the game starts?

Parking was a joke, the rain sucked, it was extremely cold, traffic was horrific since no one can drive in the rain there - the expense and the crappy performance were just the topping on the overall crap

 

[T-Ray]

It was mainly all good, just expensive, and LA has a hell of a homeless problem…

I am pretty sure I would have watched the game from an LA homeless camp for a win and given it 5 stars.

 

[Purple Hearted]

I was really looking forward to seeing SoFi, but besides the cool inside-out circular video board I was very underwhelmed. I couldn't get over how narrow the concourses were. At least on level 3. We walked in about 2 hours before kick and the concourse was more crowded than I've experienced in a long time. The very, very slow moving line at the merchandise stand and the store didn't help.

Oh yeah, I did feel that the availability of alcohol was above average. I was thankful for that as it made watching that [ Finebaum ] that we laid just a little bit more palatable.

 

[Jim Bob Cooter]

Obviously it wasn’t pleasant given the result…so I’m sure SOFI will dismiss our complaints.

But what we experienced was borderline actionable and we ended up in a situation that was extremely dangerous. It was hands down the worst ran stadium operation I’ve ever seen.

 

[Double V]

Stadium was cool looking, but EXTREMELY narrow concourses. Also, huge pet peeve of mine when you can only enter through a limited number of gates. We had to walk past 3 "VIP" gates before getting into the stadium. Also HATE stadiums where you can't easily walk around the entire thing inside. We had to go up/down a level just to circumnavigate the 200s and check it all out. DJ Dipshit trying to get the crowd riled up was pathetic. Hate that [ Finebaum ].

As for L.A. I would 100% stay in Culver City again. Good restaurants. VERY few homeless. Felt quite safe. Game transportation was $40 to park at the Inglewood Senior Center and $9 for a shuttle ticket to the stadium. Couldn't have been easier, and traffic leaving the Senior Center to go NW to Culver City was a breeze.

Only complaint is that L.A. really doesn't seem to have much charm or character at all, and it's crazy expensive, but we knew that going in.