Corona (Calif.) Centennial High's CIF state regional Open Division championship victory against Harbor City (Calif.) Narbonne should be remembered for Centennial's near miraculous last minute touchdown to win the game, 41-34, or Narbonne's remarkable comeback to tie the game at 34 with just 1:09 remaining. Instead, it now appears that it may be known for a ticketing irregularity worthy of Sherlock Holmes-style inspection.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Centennial's victory was watched by more than 6,000 fans at Cerritos College. That's a solid if not overwhelming crowd for a California championship game, and it should have driven some significant revenue for the schools and CIF itself.
Yet the gate receipts from the game were nowhere close to the 6,000 total they should have represented. Rather, Cerritos College reported 2,970 walk-up tickets sold, Centennial fans purchased 758 yards ahead of time and Narbonne sold just 61 in pregame sales.
Add those numbers together and one gets just 3,789 official tickets. It didn't take much for fans to take a quick look around and realize that there were fan more fans that that number in attendance at Cerritos.
What happened? So far no one knows. Or at least no one who knows is saying anything. As noted by the Times, there were a certain amount of free tickets given out to the schools' respective bands, media members and the like. Still, with more than 2,000 tickets unaccounted for, that would be a record number of band members, writers, bloggers, videographers and the like.
Anyone have an idea about where the missing tickets -- and the ticket revenue they represented -- went? Because if you do, the CIF is all ears.
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