Iowa State pulled in a financial surplus from its trip this past December to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tenn., according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information request by the Daily on the morning of April 2, 2013.

The school received a $15,366 payday for the Liberty Bowl trip — its third bowl appearance in four years — spending $949,134 of the $964,500 that was allocated to it by the Big 12 Conference. That surplus is much smaller than the income from its trip to the Pinstripe Bowl ($53,523) in 2011 and Insight Bowl ($158,500) in 2009.

The Big 12 Conference’s $964,500 allotted to Iowa State for the Liberty Bowl trip is much smaller than the $1.34 million for the Pinstripe Bowl. Even though the Big 12 did have nine bowl-eligible teams — the most of any conference in college football — there is no confirmation that this was why Iowa State received a smaller allocation at this time.

The document shows that Iowa State sold a total of 13,853 tickets for the game. On Dec. 19, 2012, ISU Athletic Director Jamie Pollard tweeted that sales were nearing 14,000 tickets. However, he did not tweet any figures in reference to tickets after that.

Iowa State fell to 1-2 all time in bowl games under coach Paul Rhoads with its 31-17 loss to Tulsa in the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 31, 2012.

Check back to iowastatedaily.net as this story develops.