The Hawaii Bowl is hoping the University of Hawaii’s presence in the Dec. 24 game will boost its crowd back in the 30,000 range.

“We’re past 20,000 (tickets) issued right now and, with a full week to go, I would hope we can fill the lower bowl,” said Daryl Garvin, executive director of the Hawaii Bowl.

The lower bowl at Aloha Stadium, where UH (6-7) meets Middle Tennessee State (8-4) of Conference USA at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, accounts for just under 35,000 of the facility’s 50,000 seats.

Plans call for closing the red and yellow upper levels unless there is sufficient demand, Garvin said. “If the demand is there, obviously we’d want to open up it up and sell as many seats as possible. Right now it looks like we’d be at 30,000, that’s a pretty full lower bowl.”

The bowl has closed the red and yellow upper sections in the past but with the return of the Rainbow Warriors after a five-year absence, the hope has been for a commensurate turnstile crowd.

Last year’s game, matching San Diego State and Cincinnati, had a turnstile crowd of 14,537, second-smallest in the game’s 14 years. The last 30,000-plus crowd through the gates was in 2010, UH’s last appearance, when 41,089 turned out.

MTSU said it had distributed its entire allotment of 550 tickets.

Gavin said, “We’d be happy if we had a great atmosphere and the bowl was full and looked great for television.”

The game will be nationally shown by ESPN, whose subsidiary, ESPN Events, owns and operates the Hawaii Bowl.