There are several post on this site regarding the need for more bowl games for each conference. Before the advent of ESPN, there were a limited number of bowl games. It was always exciting to see if your team was selected based on its body of hard work. Now days teams are selected based on mediocrity of a 6-6 record or sub-mediocrity (Fresno State 6-7, finishing the season at 6-8) to compete in bowls that are meaningless to the average Joe outside of the schools fan base. I believe next year there will be 40 bowls, and spots for 78 of the current 125 FBS teams. How special is it to go bowling? Not very when 2/3rds of your peers do it.

Imagine being 8 years old and participating in a spelling bee. You run home and show off your ribbon to your parents. They congratulate you on getting the ribbon, and ask how many received ribbons. You state, "everyone did." The ribbon is not very special anymore.


In the SEC, nearly everyone got a ribbon, 12/14 of the teams went bowling. Thirteen of them would have went if Kentucky would have won one more OOC game.

Yeah, they are rather meaningless. Unless you make the Top 4 and go into the CFP.

The rest is all about filling up air-time on ESPN (ESPN2 / ABC). You know a bowl is a joke, when the stadium is essentially empty.

I can understand the argument against having schools attend bowls with losing records. Not much to argue there.

I had some extra time off this holiday season and was able to watch all but two bowls(fell asleep). I had a pretty good time watching all of them. I don't always get a chance to watch all of these schools play....let alone, play a school from another major conference that they rarely get to face off against.

I don't like how ESPN has most of the games. That sucks. But, they do a good job of broadcasting.

I didn't like seeing most of the stadiums empty.

I wish they would stop overlapping games. I mean really, ...there are like 20 days to get all these games played....why do they have to conflict?

So, there are definitely some items that need addressed regarding the bowl situation. But, for the most part...I had fun watching this season.

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Fan of:
State of Texas
Southwest Conference
Big XII

Here are three separate thoughts on bowl games:

1. It needs to be harder to go to one. Teams should be required to go 7-5 to earn a slot (maybe allow 6-6 teams in but only if they didn't schedule any FCS teams.

2. To combat the attendance problem I think bowls ought to do double headers. Host two games back to back in the same stadium and sell tickets that allow admission to both. They wouldn't necessarily have two be two match ups of the same calibre--maybe before the Alamo Bowl they could have an AAC VS C-USA bowl.

3. I wish FOX Sports1, NBC Sports, and CBS Sports would get involved with the bowl system. Some competition for inventory could help boost the payouts and some of the smaller programs could actually make money instead of lose it on their bowl appearance.

I'm okay with lowering the bowls if and only if it comes at the expense of the power 5 conferences. I personally don't care to see the SEC number 10 Vs. the Big 10's number 8. I personally would like to see more power 5 vs group of 5 bowls. A safe way to boost attendance would be to try to make the games more regional. For instance the Sun Belt conference could play teams from the SEC or Big 12 in regional bowls. Conference USA could to the same with the same conferences. The AAC could play against the ACC, Big 10 and SEC. It would help the lower teams get more exposure by playing a team from a better seen conference.

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Fan of:
Sun Belt Conference
Summit League
Us National Soccer Team

Want less, more meaningful bowls? Boycott ESPN.

Thing is, they get better ratings for bowl games than they'll get for most of their NBA games, not to mention regular season college basketball, not to mention virtually anything but the NFL. People will mindlessly watch this stuff on TV. ESPN doesn't even care if they're playing in a studio anymore.

So stop watching. Get your 100 friends and have a mass casino trip... yeah, that's it, right after the Christmas stress, make it worse! (OK, back to the drawing board with that one, which probably further exemplifies the reasons these games get the ratings.) Or become atheist?

I don't watch any of the bowls much these days. They're irrelevant spare for a game before the playoff, and now only three games matter with one. Looking at the numbers, I know I'm not the only one not tuning in. And our numbers are growing.

...but it doesn't stop with it. You can't stop companies from trying to make a name for themselves going in on one. You can't stop them from taking the name of a bowl that actually had recognition and prestige and completely distorting it (I remember when one of the execs for CFA, maybe even Cathy himself, saying bluntly to ESPN that they had EVERY right injecting themselves into the Peach Bowl name).

And you can't stop ESPN taking money from these companies, the bowls, and the conferences to air this garbage. And it is practically an infomercial with a football game in the middle now. You simply can't stop companies, who pay for programming via advertising, to not do this when they are willing, viewership be ****ed, to pay for content.

You'd think by now the folks at ESPN/ABC, NBC/Comcast, CBS, and Fox would understand the demand isn't there. That the ones pushing for this stuff are the conferences and bowl pacs, some businesses with a few million to burn, and some a lot of nice dinners, gifts, and other donations. And the schools don't want this to go away...it's exposure.