I have worked with the local sports commission and the Fiesta Bowl. These organizations care about 2 things. 1. Making Money 2. Looking like they are helping the community.

Making Money is taken care of by ticket sales which BYU will do more than other programs not named Notre Dame and Ohio State. The bowl will lose a bit through alcohol sales at the game but ticket sales are more important and will more than make up for it.

Then, in order to show how much economic impact they have, they use a formula based almost entirely on ticket sales. In this formula they assume that all the ticket holders are from out of state and stayed in hotel rooms for the week and spent tons of money in the community and at restaurants. They will come up with a number that shows that the bowl had an economic impact of $25 million or something huge. There is no way to actually track this number but they use it to show their value to the community which helps in their advertising and outreach. The sports commissions also take credit for having successful out of state sporting events which increases their government funding. Its all a game, no pun intended.