Alliance may link 3 bowls

ACC among four conferences cited in talks for Capital One, Cotton and Champs games

By JON SOLOMON

Staff Writer


AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Florida Citrus Sports executive director Tom Mickle rattled off the names of bowl executives attending this week’s ACC spring meetings. Mickle was not among them.

The executives are here as part of the jockeying among conferences, networks and bowls that, when it presumably ends by August, could make the national bowl picture look decidedly different or very familiar.

Ironically, all eyes are on Mickle. His Capital One Bowl, which offers the largest payout of non-Bowl Championship Series games, has started an exclusive 60-day negotiating window until July 1 to stay with ABC.

Mickle is trying to pull off a unique alliance among the Capital One, Champs Sports and Cotton Bowl under which the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC would provide the six teams for those three games. Under the proposal, the ACC could play in the Capital One or Cotton bowls once every four years and remain in Champs Sports Bowl the remaining years.

“The lynchpin of what everything hinges on is ABC and the Capital One Bowl being put back together,