I watched parts of Hawaii and Bahamas Bowls. I doubt there were 3,000 at Tommy Bahamas Bowl. Hawaii Bowl in a big venue had perhaps 5,000.

Fresno State had a losing record at 6-7 and showed it deserved that record as Rice Cake U. beat them 30-6.

I expect in a few years there will be a Cuba Bowl. They probable have a run down "football" stadium that can be adapted

Perhaps the announced attendance based on ticket sales will be much higher at these bowls but who think American Football when they think Bahamas? The Hawaii Bowl works when the Rainbow Warrior Thugs win enough to be invited.

Nope. Love em all. Just more opportunities for more fun football and most games are on at times when other stuff is not. I am thankful for Bowl Season and all the Bowls. Where else would you get the insane Memphis/BYU or Central Michigan/WKU endings?

Very difficult travel for both of those games. If ESPN and other sponsors like doing these events that is fine.

(12-25-2014 10:52 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Nope. Love em all. Just more opportunities for more fun football and most games are on at times when other stuff is not. I am thankful for Bowl Season and all the Bowls. Where else would you get the insane Memphis/BYU or Central Michigan/WKU endings?

Totally agree. Love all the football. ESPN owns all the bowls so they'll shut em down if they aren't making money. That's their problem. The games are very entertaining and I'm taking it all in now before there's no football for 8 months.

ratings for most bowls are 'decent' vs what you may think they would be....even these early ones have better ratings than most college basketball games not played in march

In terms of traditional attendance measures, obviously. But, it's all about eyes on TV now.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball...s-too-much

I liked the term "Studio Football" concept. Money.

Yes, there are too many bowls.

But I like the Bahamas Bowl and the Hawai'i Bowl. At least these are bona fide vacation destinations. Birmingham??? Mobile??? Detroit??? Boise??? Not so much.

The other thing is that if you can't actually get a TROPHY (ie... A "bowl") then you shouldn't have it. I'm sick of the "Corporation" and ".com" games. Make a trophy and have it sponsored.

The surprising thing to me, with the cable and sat tv delivery system, seems to be just how few viewers (ratings) you need to sell profitable advertising.

Many of the channels I get consistently draw below the lower rated games on espn.

Granted, ESPN has built up its infrastructure beyond the lower tier channels of other stations on cable/sat, but the revenue stream is interesting to me in this business.

(12-25-2014 10:52 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Nope. Love em all. Just more opportunities for more fun football and most games are on at times when other stuff is not. I am thankful for Bowl Season and all the Bowls. Where else would you get the insane Memphis/BYU or Central Michigan/WKU endings?

Agreed!

Met some of the players when I was down in the Bahamas these past few days. I dont think they were too upset at the lack of support

(12-25-2014 11:30 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  Yes, there are too many bowls.

But I like the Bahamas Bowl and the Hawai'i Bowl. At least these are bona fide vacation destinations. Birmingham??? Mobile??? Detroit??? Boise??? Not so much.

i can't wait to take a trip to boise. i've only driven thru it, but idaho truly is a bona fide vacation. you're in the mountains, outside of the populace, don't you love west virginia?

I've said this on here plenty of times, I just don't get the big deal about bowls. Does being the champions of the Papa Johns Bowl really mean anything to these guys, and if it does should it? I see honor in winning a conference, I now see the honor in winning the playoff, but winning a single game against a random opponent especially when, in most cases, both teams had mediocre seasons? I guess some people just want to be able to call themselves "champs."

I think only teams that had good seasons should play these games, the threshold is way too low.

I agree. I just wish ESPN sold a bowl pass so I could watch them.
Also I'd like to see Cincinnati host one at Nippert. That area is dead
at that time of the year and I bet we could get some fans to come
to see Cincinnati at that time of the year. I'd also like to get a MAC
team. It's bs that they are lucky to get any bowl slots. I think some
years their Championship game loser doesn't get to play post-season.
How about The Dunnhumby or the Perfect Romance Bowl since our major
corporations don't seem to want to do much in this way.

(12-25-2014 10:52 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Nope. Love em all. Just more opportunities for more fun football and most games are on at times when other stuff is not. I am thankful for Bowl Season and all the Bowls. Where else would you get the insane Memphis/BYU or Central Michigan/WKU endings?

(12-25-2014 02:14 PM)maxthecat Wrote:  I agree. I just wish ESPN sold a bowl pass so I could watch them.
Also I'd like to see Cincinnati host one at Nippert. That area is dead
at that time of the year and I bet we could get some fans to come
to see Cincinnati at that time of the year. I'd also like to get a MAC
team. It's bs that they are lucky to get any bowl slots. I think some
years their Championship game loser doesn't get to play post-season.
How about The Dunnhumby or the Perfect Romance Bowl since our major
corporations don't seem to want to do much in this way.

shoot. the skyline chili cross nation bowl! the proctor and gamble disposabowl! the neilson rating's bowl! they write themselves

If the County/City/Bengals had had the forethought to do a retractable roof we could do a Queen City Bowl, AAC Championship Game, etc. etc.

I don't think most of the players care to much about winning the Weed-Eater Bowl, but a free trip to Hawaii or some place tropical isn't too shabby. Add the free "swag" of Xbox 1s and other bowl gifts and they'll play in Mongolia if need be.


Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

What Delany mention to say is that if all ACC get bowl bids he is ok. Delaney is trying to squish the G5 by taking away bowls. Reducing bowls is all part of the master plan to cut out G5 competition. He knows the smaller number of bowls favor his league and other P5 conferences.

While I asked the questions, I do like watching the bowls. That said it seems a winning record instead of just 6 wins is a reasonable threshold.

My new favorite website, FiveThirtyEight, has a great piece on the so called "Bowl Bloat"

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/colle...-3-charts/

Quote:College Football’s Bloated Bowl Season In 3 Charts

3:08 PMDEC 23 By NEIL PAINE

It’s a refrain almost as common as “Merry Christmas” this time of year: There are too many bowl games. While hardcore college football fans don’t mind watching, say, the Miami Beach Bowl on a Monday afternoon a full 10 days before the traditional bowlfest of New Year’s Day (guilty!), there’s also the sense that the bloated bowl season has taken away much of the meaning that used to be associated with playing in college football’s postseason.

How much expansion has there been? This season will see a record 39 bowl games played, from the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl to the College Football Playoff National Championship. Compare that to 1968, when there were 11 bowls, or even 1984, when there were 18 — a total that would remain more or less static for more than a decade. But in the late 1990s (perhaps not coincidentally, when the Bowl Championship Series began), the bowl field began expanding rapidly, reaching 20 games in 1997, 25 in 2000 and 32 in 2006.

In the chart below you can see the proliferation of the bowl field since 1982, the year cable television money and the departure of the Ivy League from Division I-A ushered in college football’s truly modern era:



Some of the bloat is associated with an increase in the number of Division I-A (now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS) football teams, to 128 this season from 113 in 1982. (A chunk of these new additions have come in just the past few seasons, as part of what FiveThirtyEight contributor David Goldenberg calls a “recent trend of universities starting football programs from scratch with the plan to get to Division I as soon as possible, and reap the PR and financial benefits that come with a major football program.”)

But the growth of the FBS only explains a small portion of the bowl explosion. Even as a percentage of all FBS schools, almost twice as many teams will go bowling this season as did in 1996:



Economically, there are pros and cons to the inflated bowl field. And these games do matter football-wise, especially to a certain subset of mid-major programs looking for exposure any way they can find it. But, as a natural byproduct of expansion, the caliber of teams in bowls has plummeted over the past three decades.

Using an Elo-like estimated version of ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) pre-bowl ratings, here is the progression of the average, worst, and 25th-percentile teams in the bowl field for each season since 1982:



The average rating for bowl-bound teams is barely lower now than it was in 1982, and the fact that it crested in 1996 — right before the bowl boom — suggests that there were enough good teams to support some type of expansion in the late 1990s. (Why this change took place is up for debate, though it could point to the origins of today’s ongoing trend of reduced parity between college football’s haves and have-nots.)

However, the trend lines describing the dregs of the bowl field (the minimum and 25th-percentile ratings) show how much the bar for bowl entry has been lowered since that time. Bad teams occasionally made their way into bowls before 1997, but that’s now commonplace, particularly since the number of bowl entrants has grown by 39 percent since 2005.

Monday’s Miami Beach Bowl thriller, between Memphis and Brigham Young, showed that less prestigious bowl games can still provide excitement for fans that bother to tune in. But it’s also fair to question whether we really need to see FPI No. 95 South Alabama and No. 97 Bowling Green (both considered to be in excess of 8 points per game worse than an average FBS team) face off in the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl — as happened on Saturday. Like so much in college football, the bowls are an as yet incomplete experiment in where to find a happy medium between tradition, money-making and the role of academic institutions in the world of high-profile sports.