SAN DIEGO — The Holiday Bowl with its wild games and stunning finishes has been a college football tradition in San Diego since 1978.
But Team 10 has found the event nearly went bankrupt after the COVID-19 pandemic canceled games in 2020 and 2021.
The bowl lost millions of dollars in ticket sales and sponsorships. And, Mark Neville, who has been with the bowl more than three decades, said the organization still is not out of the woods.
However, he's confident the event has a strong future as it's part of a resurgence under Sports San Diego, which now runs the bowl and two other sporting events designed to bring tourists to San Diego.
COVID cancels two games
COVID canceled most college bowl games in 2020, but it also scuttled the 2021 Holiday Bowl when UCLA — just hours before kickoff — pulled out of the game citing COVID protocols.
“It hurt," Neville told Team 10. "For decades, we built reserves for the rainy day. Well, that was our rainy day. We had a couple of rainy days and so, the end result of that is that we basically burned through our reserves.”
The bowl after that game sued the Pac-12, citing millions of dollars in losses. The conference counter sued the bowl.
Team 10 found the bowl, according to its most recent tax filings, is $1.4 million in debt.
Neville said bankruptcy was even considered.
A different option
But, he said the bowl embraced another option as its volunteers and board of directors refused to let the event dissolve.
"I think this community owes them quite a bit of thanks because our bowl game could have been knocked out," he said. "It was a big blow, but we are a pretty resilient group and very community minded.”
Instead of going under, the organization expanded and became a part of a new company called Sports San Diego of which Neville is the chief executive.
Rady Children's Invitational
That group launched a men's college basketball tournament called the Rady Children's Invitational.
“Last year’s inaugural event for that tournament was maybe one of the best, if not the best events, we’ve ever produced," Neville said. "This year we have a rematch of the Final Four semifinal between Purdue and NC State.”
This year's sold out tournament is Nov. 28-29, at LionTree Arena at UC San Diego.
Driving tourists to San Diego
Sports San Diego also added the California State Games, an annual Olympic-style sports festival for amateur athletes across San Diego County.
“Now, we have three owned and operated events, the bowl game, the Rady Children’s Invitational Basketball Tournament and the California State Games," Neville said. "It wasn’t easy."
Neville said the goal for all three events is to bring more tourists to San Diego.
"The bowl game does a really good job for San Diego. It drives hotel nights, creates jobs, creates economic impact, creates tax revenues for the city," Neville said. "And that has not changed."
Neville said for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, Sports San Diego events resulted in roughly 100,000 hotel room nights being filled.
"We want to be driving 250,000 room nights a year, and we're on our way to doing it," he said.
Neville said all of the tourists translates into millions of dollars in economic impact for greater San Diego.
'Water under the bridge'
Meanwhile, the bowl settled its suit with the Pac-12 in July. Financial terms were not disclosed.
"The way we are looking at it now is it’s water under the bridge, you know, it’s done, it’s in the past," he said. "We are going to move forward."
As the Holiday Bowl moves forward, it's competing with bowls that also are aligned with the Pac-12 — and are in much better financial shape.
Team 10 found the most recent annual tax returns of the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La. and the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas show that each has at least $1 million in the bank.
And the San Antonio Bowl in Texas has $23 million in the bank.
However, Neville says the Holiday Bowl remains a major player in college football.
He said that's because its TV contract, sponsorships and ticket sales generate large payouts to the conferences tied to the bowl.
“Of the 42 bowl games that are out there, our payout is probably 11th or 12th highest of them all," he said. "We are in the neighborhood of a combined payout of $5.5 to $6 million dollars.”
Patriotic theme
The Holiday Bowl is set to have teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and members of the current and former Pac-12 Conference play Dec. 27, as well as next year.
The 45th annual game will be played in Snapdragon Stadium after playing the past two years in downtown San Diego at Petco Park. It will have a patriotic flair with a pre-game flyover and fireworks after the game.
Neville said amid all the changes in college football — including a new playoff this season — it's difficult to say which conferences will be sending teams to future Holiday Bowls.
"There is not one person on the planet that can tell you what the college football landscape is going to look like a couple of years from now," he said. "Internally, here, we’ve been working on so many different scenarios, kind of playing out how proactive we can be in amending what, where the Holiday Bowl fits in that landscape.”
Neville added that the community can support the bowl by purchasing tickets or becoming a sponsor.
