The St. Pete Bowl Experience
Monday, December 22, 2008
Posted By Spencer Hall 12:05 PM
Spencer Hall was in St. Petersburg, FL over the weekend for the magicJack St. Pete Bowl. Here are some words to go along with his previously posted moving pictures of the scene.
St. Petersburg put together its bowl game in a matter of months, mostly because ESPN wants programming, thought St. Pete looked warm and inviting enough, and suggested the idea to the city, and they thought, "Well, sure we can put together a bowl game in 15 minutes," and lo! The instant tradition of the St. Pete Bowl was thus born, as enduring and wanted as a pack of freeze-dried figs discovered on a lonely back shelf at Costco.
This is the point at which you have a discussion with a sports fan not familiar with the intricacies of college football.
"Why don't they fix this?"
"There is no 'they' to fix anything?"
"You mean Roger Goodell can't fix this?"
It's an anarchic world in the bowl system, where instead of a single Wal-Mart where you may purchase everything from screws to shoes (the NFL), you get little Mom and Pop shops subcontracting out for suppliers like ESPN. Mom and Pop shops like the city of St. Petersburg, where a good portion of the population came to sit comfortably in a warm place before dying, and the rest spend their time honking loudly behind those new arrivals in traffic.
St. Pete remains far from glamorous, but the city did a respectable job in inventing a bowl game from thin air. Not only did they snag a team that only need take a five mile ride over a bridge to make the game, but they also did a respectable job setting up the game. They blocked off a street downtown the night before and had music in the form of a Weather Channel Jazz band. They had alcohol in the form of on-street beer sales. Even the homeless showed out: the pre-game block party on Friday got free entertainment supplemented at no cost by a cracked-out looking homeless guy rocking his face off to the band. The band clearly thought he was awesome; the crowd kept a judicious distance from him, either concerned they were going to catch homeless from him, or wanting to avoid injury from a flailing arm or leg.
The planning for Memphis could have worked out a bit better: Memphis shared a team hotel with a black fraternity/sorority reunion, meaning Memphis football players -- carrying plates of cheesecake and ice cream up to the room from the team buffet -- walked past very attractive women wearing evening dresses on their way to the room. Distractions for a bowl team come in a thousand forms. One of them: cougars wearing low-cut dresses staying in your hotel.
As for ticket demand ... there wasn't. I walked into Ferg's Sports Bar without tickets and could have in theory left with tickets to spare acquired at the low, low cost of free. The idea was clearly to put butts in seats and do so with speed, as everyone seemed to have extras they couldn't unload. For all I know, the upper deck could have been filled with confused retirees wondering why the Bucs were wearing green and white and playing indoors in a baseball stadium.
(I would have trolled the retirement homes to fill seats: just tell them Matlock is singing the national anthem, and then watch as the fire department has to shut the place down. A likely flaw in my plan? Without an early bird special in-stadium, this would have presented a serious schedule conflict for many of them.) USF fans took this all in stride, however. Those that did show up were loud, boisterous, covered in green, and generally fit and healthy-looking in the way that Ohio State fans often are. (Read: Lots of shrugs and "boat muscle" workouts. You know, the muscles you can see when standing shirtless in a boat from a distance.) USF fans were so fit, actually, that they couldn't resist getting a quick MMA workout in the parking lot pregame. You might think executing takedowns on pavement would hurt, but that is because you are a weakling who didn't think of turning road barriers into YOUR VERY OWN OCTAGON COME GET SOME ...
The game itself flopped competitively. Either overwhelmed in terms of talent or exhausted by the distraction of attractive cougars staying at their hotel, Memphis never really had a bubble screen's chance in the game. With the score in hand in the third quarter, I made a list of excellent things about the St. Pete Bowl to keep myself occupied.
1.
Beer. Freed from the NCAA's rules about in-stadium alcohol consumption, you are free to drink overpriced Heineken in your seat at the Trop. Points awarded.
2.
Outback concessions. Blooming Onions are horrible, heart-clogging batter bombs your doctor suggests you not even look at. Fortunately, you can have a friend cover your eyes while you dip the straws of the tasty death blossom into the spicy ranch dressing served with it. That's what friends are for.
3.
The magicJack sponsorship. Since the days of the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl, I have believed firmly in the necessity of an odd-sounding sponsor for lower-tier bowl games. A VOIP internet phone service incapable of capitalizing its name properly? Winner in this department, clearly. Also, fans around me were screaming "YOU GOT MAGICJACK'D UP!!!" on big hits, further proof the marriage of a sketchy sponsor and fledgling bowl is a natural and good one, indeed.
And when the game was done, what did we have? We got an exhibition game of no national import generating revenue for ESPN. We got an event that may break even for the organizers of the bowl. We got four hours of football programming on television. It made one team really, really happy: USF players on the field were clearly thrilled to have ended the season on an up note, though not as thrilled as Jim Leavitt. I couldn't get near Leavitt, who clung to the trophy like he was maintaining three points of contact and headed to the endzone himself. He was covered in Gatorade and fear-sweat and amped to an almost unhealthy degree. Something else going to a tiny, pre-Christmas bowl will remind you of: no matter how irrelevant the game may be in the grand scheme of things, someone like Leavitt (and many of his players) will show up for it, because it's a game, and people love to play games no matter the situation.
ESPN would televise pissing contests between old men for money. Give them college football between schools paid to be there fielding squads of young men fond of beating someone's ass for amusement, and you have instant product ready for the market. All you need is a stadium, two teams with six wins, and a camera crew. Everything else -- Bloomin' Onions included -- is just extras.
This article appeared on the Sporting News website on Monday, December 22, 2008.
