(07-13-2021 12:52 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  ESPN wants the bowls to be played just so they can have live sports on TV, but their value is minimal.

This is because other than the contract bowls & playoffs, most most of the bowls don't get great ratings. The average non-contract bowl in 2021 got 2.23 million viewers.

The highest non-contract bowl this year was the Citrus bowl (Auburn-Northwestern), which got a 2.8 rating and 4.78 million viewers. That's about the same as the average 1st round NCAA basketball tournament game on CBS.

4 of the bowls got under 1 million viewers. That's about the same as a First Four NCAA tournament game on True TV.

Sources:
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college...v-ratings/
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2021/03...e-not-bad/

Each of the four bowls that had fewer than a million viewers was played on a weekday afternoon. Also, for pretty much every bowl game, the audiences are much larger than they would be for any non-live programming ESPN would show in the bowls' time slots.

Even if the dollar value of each minor bowl is minimal, ESPN wants to keep the bowls and will keep them even if there is a 12-team playoff. Just as importantly, the FBS schools want to keep all the bowls because they like having them as "participation trophies" for every team that wins at least 6 games.