[Tuck4Bama]

BATON ROUGE -- When LSU worked out a 10-year home and home contract to renew its football series with Tulane two years ago, Tiger officials had high hopes for the return games at the Superdome.

With the program rolling along as one of the elite in the nation and tickets hard to come by, LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman figured a road game 90 minutes away would be an easy sell.

Bertman believed Tigers fans would snap up the 40,000 tickets allotted to LSU by Tulane as part of the deal, and LSU would make a nice profit on an away game with relatively small travel expense.

But two days before the teams meet at 11 a.m. at the Superdome, LSU still has about 8,500 unsold tickets.

Bertman said LSU still is coming out ahead, but added he's disappointed with the lagging sales, which he attributes to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the early start time, the fact the game is televised and that all of the remaining tickets LSU has are in the Terrace level.

"Yes, I felt 40,000 could be sold when we did the contract," Bertman said this week. "They would have had the game been in the afternoon or at night. The fact that it's on TV is hurting us, too. People don't want to come down here early in the morning to sit in the upper deck, either."

LSU still working on filling the Dome- NOLA.com