Announced attendance figures provided by bowl organizers or stadium officials were used by AP. Those numbers — typically derived by counting the number of tickets distributed, game participants, band members and media members — invariably are higher than the actual attendance, sometimes by a wide margin.
The Las Vegas Bowl had an announced attendance of 34,197, but the scanned ticket count provided to AP by the stadium owner, UNLV, was 16,568. The Birmingham Bowl, played in heavy rain with a lengthy lightning delay, announced 27,193 even though actual attendance was 9,679. The New Mexico Bowl announced a crowd of 18,823; a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter at the game estimated actual attendance at 6,000.