Running bowl thread

Everybody has an agenda. It is possible for an agenda and the common good to cross paths. There isn't a single piece of legislation introduced anywhere that isn't done so by an elected official trying to appease their electorate.

 

How did Orin Hatch do when he kvetched about the issue last year?

 

Also, Gator Bowl sold out in two days. They're putting the temp stands they drag out for Florida-Georgia back in to increase capacity to 83,000. Since college counts support personnel, media, hot dog vendors, etc. in attendance, the belief is that the game will top the stadium record of 85,412 that saw FSU play Alabama in 2007.

Been reported in Tallahassee that FSU had 30,000 requests for tickets. They get 16,500. West Virginia had 20,000 requests.

And to think the ACC tried to fight them on this game.

 

These posts make a point for me I've made before. A playoff would pose little or no threat to the current bowls. Look at these ticket sales for what fans know damn well are in a real sense exhibition games. They don't care, taking the event in the spirit in which it was intended.
Presumably, the biggest bowls could have their names wrapped into playoff games a la the BCS, and the rest of the bowls would go on as before. What's the problem?

 

Actually it will kill the bowl games as we know them.

The 14 of the 15 cities selected to be playoff sites and will host games in December with the championship game site hosting the only New Year's Day game.

Teams will arrive on Thursday and leave Saturday night following the game.

The cities that don't get picked won't have bowl games anymore because they will disappear once the NCAA gets into the football postseason business in Division I-A. Corporate dollars will shift to playoff sponsorship or other non-football events.

Hosting a bowl game is nothing like hosting an NIT game so please don't bother with that argument.

 

Bowl Series football runs itself. A playoff need not involve the NCAA in any way, shape or form, since the BCS doesn't. Your doomsday scenario was tested. The BCS championship game hurt the TV ratings of the big bowls, but hasn't hurt the smaller ones in the slightest. Hell, they're still coming up with more of them.
There is always going to be a week between football games, and the teams can be forced to visit bowl sites for most of that week, just as NFL teams must for the Super Bowl.

 

Why would it have to? There seems to be corporate sponsorship enough to go around now, even with the BCS. Why would that have to change? Hell, if we had playoffs in December, maybe some bowl games involving non-playoff teams could move back to New Year's Day as a warmup to the title game.

 

Florida State certainly wouldn't have made any playoff, and it's debatable whether West Virginia would have either.

So if whatever they're calling that stadium in Jacksonville now hosts a playoff game on Dec. 12, what's keeping it from hosting a bowl game on Jan. 1?

If you have a first round this weekend, then the quarters next weekend, you could skip Christmas weekend and play the semis on Saturday the 2nd. That leaves Friday the 1st free for bowl games -- and all the days between the 19th and the 31st, as well. They play bowl games on random Thursdays now, so that's not changing anything.

Maybe the demand for Gator Bowl tickets wouldn't have been quite as high, but it's not as though either of those teams is playing for anything now, either.

We live in an era where tens of thousands of people show up for spring games, and where Tennessee sells 17,000 bowl-game tickets in a matter of days after a 7-5 season. I really don't see how the value of a mid-tier bowl game is changed at all by introducing a playoff.

 

You clearly don't understand how the NCAA operates.

The only way a 16-team playoff happens is if the FBS presidents agree they want to go that route. And if they do it will only happen under the auspices of the NCAA not the CCA (Collegiate Commissioners Association), which runs the BCS.

Now, a "plus one" game, which is think is the most likely scenario, would avoid what I mentioned above and could be run without impacting the current set-up. But a full-blown 16-team playoff will end the bowl system.

 

I agree that the NCAA would commandeer any playoff. But why does that have to put an end to the bowl system?

 

I really get tired of going over this shit every couple of months, but here we go.

If a 16-team playoff happens, most of the top-tier bowls would become host sites. This would be a bone thrown to the host cities to make up for killing the bowl system.

The vast majority of the bowls that are left are either owned by ESPN or barely making it as it is.

ESPN has no reason to continue to operate the games it runs now - or broadcast the ones that are left - once it starts broadcasting the playoffs so those games are gone.

As for hosting a bowl game a couple weeks after a playoff game, why would a company - local or national - agree to sponsor the bowl game when it could get better exposure tying itself to the playoff weekend?

And the main reason the bowl system will end is that the FBS presidents will legislate it out of existence.

 

Because what the hell else are people going to watch on Dec. 28, when the Christmas turkey is gone but the relatives aren't scheduled to leave for another four days?

It's football. It's college football. People will watch it. And if ESPN can make money showing Tuesday night MAC games, it can sure as hell make money showing secondary bowl games, even if there is a playoff.