(10-23-2020 05:42 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

(10-23-2020 04:45 PM)gulfcoastgal Wrote:  

(10-23-2020 01:41 PM)Poseidon Wrote:  

(10-23-2020 12:28 PM)slhNavy91 Wrote:  

I really don't understand why bowls won't be played. They are often played in empty stadiums anyway and are all about television. Just change to location.

They also have expenses. If sponsors drop out and attendance is restricted, tv money alone isn't going to cut it. The LB director said on Memphis radio this week that bowls have had discussions with partners about adjusting payments due to COVID requirements. When asked what that may look like, he estimated a possible 25-30% drop in payout for some bowls.

Despite what the bowl-haters want you to believe, "empty" in non-pandemic years isn't actually empty. 10,000 fans in a 40,000 seat stadium look pretty sparse. But there is a big difference between that $850,000 and $0.
AND the bowl game itself is in partnership with the local chamber of commerce - they exist to get hotel stays and restaurant meals sold. SDSU-Navy in the Poinsettia Bowl may have been the highest attendance but it wasn't the greatest economic impact compared to other matchups bringing slightly fewer fans into town. If you only have a couple hundred travelling party for each team, you're taking a loss on security, fire, EMS, etc with no benefit to local businesses.
ESPN can make money having this content over the holidays. But what they pay for licensing / TV rights is one small part of what the Bowl itself and local economy make. The math just doesn't work out in pandemic conditions. You have to pull the trigger now if you can't project any better 75 days out.

Durring the SDSU stadium fiasco it came to light that the Holiday and San Diego have been losing money like crazy. Part of why the City didn't want to sell was that the Holiday bowl for all intents and purposes is now a huge debt dragging at the city since they would have to pay SDSU to host it. That bowl is probably dead. SDSU is likely to get their stadium done by knocking down the old one before the state could tell them to stop, I don't see the rest of that getting developed according to what was voted on. It's going to get messy and covid makes it all worse as far as how the money will work out. Other bowls have similar problems minus the stadium issues, like the Independence and the smaller bowls like Frisco etc.