Football: CIF has lessons to be learned from bowl games

This was the eighth year of the CIF state championship bowl games, and the largest crowd ever, 16,791, attended Saturday’s triple-header.

Interest was at an all-time high because of the Open Division matchup between St. John Bosco and De La Salle, but there are still lessons to be learned, because the CIF didn’t capitalize on an opportunity as much as it could.

First up was the long lines for fans trying to buy tickets for the 8 p.m. final.

Here’s the tale of one fan, Stuart Weiss: “Given the justifiable hype for this game, my wife and I decided to attend. We didn’t have tickets, nor did we have a partisan interest in the game. It sounded like a fantastic matchup and a fun way to spend a Saturday night. Unfortunately, we didn’t get in. We exited the 91 Freeway at Avalon at about 7 p.m. and it took over an hour to go one mile to the StubHub Center parking lot.

“We finally parked and walked over to the ticket line about 15 minutes after the game started. We saw a single serpentine line that was long with the end far from the ticket booth. I’m guessing that there were at least 300 people (not all ticket buyers as family members and friends were waiting too). After standing in line for a few minutes we gave up. Given the glacial pace of the line movement, we would have been lucky to get in by halftime.”

The good news is Weiss got his $10 parking fee refunded and went to have a nice dinner, but the CIF should have anticipated a large walk-up crowd. That will be something to plan for if there’s another great matchup in the future.

Also, there were complaints from people who could not see the game on television because they didn’t have Time Warner Cable. It was streamed live for free on the Web, but the game should have been on TWC SportsNet, which would have made it available nationwide.

Unfortunately, the Lakers were also playing that night, and they get priority on TWC SportsNet. So one of the best games in California history lost out for a wider audience.

Hopefully, that can be fixed in the future.

Lessons to be learned.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com