This from Brett McMurphy today:

Quote:The Las Vegas Bowl will move from UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium to Vegas’ new NFL stadium in 2020 and in the process end a 19-year relationship with the Mountain West Conference, sources said.

Starting in 2020, which coincides with the beginning of the next NCAA bowl cycle, the Las Vegas Bowl will feature a Pac-12 team against another Power 5 conference team, sources said.

“Every Power 5 conference wants in this game because of the new stadium and location,” a source said.

A Pac-12 vs. SEC matchup would be the most intriguing and some sources consider the SEC the favorite to ultimately face the Pac-12 in the Vegas Bowl starting in 2020.

The Pac-12 currently plays bowl games against each of the Power 5 conferences, except for the SEC. The two conferences have played in only nine non-College Football Playoff/New Year’s 6 bowls. The last Pac-12 vs. SEC matchup in a non-CFB Playoff/New Year’s 6 bowl was 29 years ago in the 1989 Freedom Bowl.

Meanwhile with the Las Vegas Bowl out of the mix for the Mountain West champion starting in 2020, the league is looking at other options where to send its champ. One possibility is the Arizona Bowl in Tucson, sources said. The Mountain West also is expected to add another bowl tie-in 2020, possibly a newly created bowl in Tempe at Arizona State, sources said.
From 2001-05, the Mountain West sent its second place team to Las Vegas. Beginning in 2006, the Mountain West champion – if it didn’t qualify for a BCS, College Football Playoff or New Year’s 6 bowl – would play a Pac-12 opponent in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Bowl began in 1992 and has been always affiliated with UNLV’s conference – either the Big West, WAC or Mountain West.

This was the post on his Facebook page a little while ago...

https://www.facebook.com/TheBrettMcMurphy/

I like it! Always found it odd there was a P-conference we didn't have a deal with and Vegas is an awesome Bowl trip!

I love the idea as well, hopefully it would not be exclusive to SECW teams like the Cotton Bowl and Texas Bowl have seemingly become.

It looks like most of the bowls will be up for renegotiation that year.

How about some predictions on where the SEC teams might start landing assuming there's any real difference in how things are aligned?

If we get the game in Las Vegas then some other game moves off the slate I imagine. Who would it be? Any other shakeups?

Right now, we've got tie ins with:

Sugar Bowl - Big 12
Citrus Bowl - Big Ten or ACC

Liberty Bowl - Big 12
Belk Bowl - ACC
Music City Bowl - ACC or Big Ten
Outback Bowl - Big Ten
Gator Bowl - Big Ten or ACC
Texas Bowl - Big 12

Independence Bowl - ACC
Birmingham Bowl - American

That's 10 bowl tie-ins and assuming we get an entrant into the CFP every season then that makes things hairy. There's going to be a lot of years where we don't fill our allotment.

Now replacing one of these games with the Las Vegas Bowl is not too difficult in theory. We'd love to trade in the Independence Bowl I imagine as the market, facilities, and destination are not ideal. That and the weather tends to suck for that game. Birmingham, by contrast, will at least be getting a new downtown stadium soon so that does sort of give it a boost to remain in the rotation.

The problem is that these games host low level teams and Vegas is probably going to demand a higher quality team. With their new stadium they should have the money to make it a pretty big deal. So someone has to get bumped down in the pecking order. Someone is going to have to be in the bottom two and that means risking not having an SEC team participate at all.

Personally, I would say give that slot to the Gator Bowl. We don't really need exposure in Jacksonville anyway. Now, the Gator is a big enough game that they might balk at this and say we'd rather partner with someone else to guarantee some bigger names.

The other locales sound solid to me and the pecking order is less important than the locations.

(06-08-2018 01:45 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  It looks like most of the bowls will be up for renegotiation that year.

How about some predictions on where the SEC teams might start landing assuming there's any real difference in how things are aligned?

If we get the game in Las Vegas then some other game moves off the slate I imagine. Who would it be? Any other shakeups?

Right now, we've got tie ins with:

Sugar Bowl - Big 12
Citrus Bowl - Big Ten or ACC

Liberty Bowl - Big 12
Belk Bowl - ACC
Music City Bowl - ACC or Big Ten
Outback Bowl - Big Ten
Gator Bowl - Big Ten or ACC
Texas Bowl - Big 12

Independence Bowl - ACC
Birmingham Bowl - American

That's 10 bowl tie-ins and assuming we get an entrant into the CFP every season then that makes things hairy. There's going to be a lot of years where we don't fill our allotment.

Now replacing one of these games with the Las Vegas Bowl is not too difficult in theory. We'd love to trade in the Independence Bowl I imagine as the market, facilities, and destination are not ideal. That and the weather tends to suck for that game. Birmingham, by contrast, will at least be getting a new downtown stadium soon so that does sort of give it a boost to remain in the rotation.

The problem is that these games host low level teams and Vegas is probably going to demand a higher quality team. With their new stadium they should have the money to make it a pretty big deal. So someone has to get bumped down in the pecking order. Someone is going to have to be in the bottom two and that means risking not having an SEC team participate at all.

Personally, I would say give that slot to the Gator Bowl. We don't really need exposure in Jacksonville anyway. Now, the Gator is a big enough game that they might balk at this and say we'd rather partner with someone else to guarantee some bigger names.

The other locales sound solid to me and the pecking order is less important than the locations.

You are overthinking this one. Georgia and Florida would raise hell if we gave up the Gator bowl. Right now they own the recruiting from Jacksonville to Gainesville and South to Ocala along the Atlantic.

It would be the Independence bowl that we dropped. One of the lowest paying (Gator pays pretty well) and they Birmingham bowl would pick up the lowest two pairings and everyone else gets bumped up. Personally I would love to see us drop the Birmingham Bowl. Talk about a city where the SEC doesn't have to have a presence that it. Plus it might actually help the City of Birmingham if they didn't have a nearby SEC school in the bowl. Hotel bookings would go up. But that's just me overthinking it a bit.

(06-08-2018 03:16 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-08-2018 01:45 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  It looks like most of the bowls will be up for renegotiation that year.

How about some predictions on where the SEC teams might start landing assuming there's any real difference in how things are aligned?

If we get the game in Las Vegas then some other game moves off the slate I imagine. Who would it be? Any other shakeups?

Right now, we've got tie ins with:

Sugar Bowl - Big 12
Citrus Bowl - Big Ten or ACC

Liberty Bowl - Big 12
Belk Bowl - ACC
Music City Bowl - ACC or Big Ten
Outback Bowl - Big Ten
Gator Bowl - Big Ten or ACC
Texas Bowl - Big 12

Independence Bowl - ACC
Birmingham Bowl - American

That's 10 bowl tie-ins and assuming we get an entrant into the CFP every season then that makes things hairy. There's going to be a lot of years where we don't fill our allotment.

Now replacing one of these games with the Las Vegas Bowl is not too difficult in theory. We'd love to trade in the Independence Bowl I imagine as the market, facilities, and destination are not ideal. That and the weather tends to suck for that game. Birmingham, by contrast, will at least be getting a new downtown stadium soon so that does sort of give it a boost to remain in the rotation.

The problem is that these games host low level teams and Vegas is probably going to demand a higher quality team. With their new stadium they should have the money to make it a pretty big deal. So someone has to get bumped down in the pecking order. Someone is going to have to be in the bottom two and that means risking not having an SEC team participate at all.

Personally, I would say give that slot to the Gator Bowl. We don't really need exposure in Jacksonville anyway. Now, the Gator is a big enough game that they might balk at this and say we'd rather partner with someone else to guarantee some bigger names.

The other locales sound solid to me and the pecking order is less important than the locations.

You are overthinking this one. Georgia and Florida would raise hell if we gave up the Gator bowl. Right now they own the recruiting from Jacksonville to Gainesville and South to Ocala along the Atlantic.

It would be the Independence bowl that we dropped. One of the lowest paying (Gator pays pretty well) and they Birmingham bowl would pick up the lowest two pairings and everyone else gets bumped up. Personally I would love to see us drop the Birmingham Bowl. Talk about a city where the SEC doesn't have to have a presence that it. Plus it might actually help the City of Birmingham if they didn't have a nearby SEC school in the bowl. Hotel bookings would go up. But that's just me overthinking it a bit.

I agree we should give up Shreveport.

What I'm saying about the Gator Bowl is that a new 'lower tier' game must replace Shreveport because the Las Vegas Bowl will want a guarantee that a decent team is always in their game.

Whichever game gets bumped down into that lower tier, however, runs the risk of not having an SEC participant in any given year. Would the Gator go for that? The Liberty? I'm not sure any of these games would take a relegation with regard to pecking order. Unless we trade one of the higher tier games straight up for the Las Vegas opportunity then I'm not sure Shreveport's spot in the pecking order can be accounted for.

We definitely don't need the Birmingham game, but I have a feeling the league office wants to help out the home town with a higher profile opponent that it otherwise would not get.

I agree the most logical one to drop in favor of Vegas is the Independence Bowl.

It's a western SEC locale Bowl in a market we solidly control anyway where the only real attraction besides the game itself is gambling in Shreveport

In other words it would become Vegas Lite anyway so might as well replace it with the real deal.

Nobody would be heartbroken over trading Shreveport for Vegas

Also agree it would have to move up in the pecking order since Vegas would want better teams and let's face it, given the drop off in how people care about the bowls in our new CFP era, if your not in the playoffs then location really really matters as a draw and Vegas is one of the best. No disrespect to our hosts, but who wants to go to Jacksonville or Charlotte or even Dallas over Vegas

(06-09-2018 07:08 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  I agree the most logical one to drop in favor of Vegas is the Independence Bowl.

It's a western SEC locale Bowl in a market we solidly control anyway where the only real attraction besides the game itself is gambling in Shreveport

In other words it would become Vegas Lite anyway so might as well replace it with the real deal.

Nobody would be heartbroken over trading Shreveport for Vegas

Also agree it would have to move up in the pecking order since Vegas would want better teams and let's face it, given the drop off in how people care about the bowls in our new CFP era, if your not in the playoffs then location really really matters as a draw and Vegas is one of the best. No disrespect to our hosts, but who wants to go to Jacksonville or Charlotte or even Dallas over Vegas

I'd like to see the Gator Bowl be Big Ten vs. ACC every year (rather than SEC vs. Big Ten OR ACC). Although I agree that the Independence Bowl does nothing for the SEC. Leave Charlotte (Belk Bowl) as ACC vs SEC though - it's the perfect battleground for those conferences... in the absence of the Peach Bowl, that is.

(06-09-2018 05:44 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(06-09-2018 07:08 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  I agree the most logical one to drop in favor of Vegas is the Independence Bowl.

It's a western SEC locale Bowl in a market we solidly control anyway where the only real attraction besides the game itself is gambling in Shreveport

In other words it would become Vegas Lite anyway so might as well replace it with the real deal.

Nobody would be heartbroken over trading Shreveport for Vegas

Also agree it would have to move up in the pecking order since Vegas would want better teams and let's face it, given the drop off in how people care about the bowls in our new CFP era, if your not in the playoffs then location really really matters as a draw and Vegas is one of the best. No disrespect to our hosts, but who wants to go to Jacksonville or Charlotte or even Dallas over Vegas

I'd like to see the Gator Bowl be Big Ten vs. ACC every year (rather than SEC vs. Big Ten OR ACC). Although I agree that the Independence Bowl does nothing for the SEC. Leave Charlotte (Belk Bowl) as ACC vs SEC though - it's the perfect battleground for those conferences... in the absence of the Peach Bowl, that is.

I'm thinking we may have to give up the Gator or another game in order to take advantage of the Las Vegas opportunity. I agree with you though that we need to keep the Charlotte game...playing the ACC in North Carolina is a natural fit.

Nonetheless, I'm also fine giving up the Shreveport game one way or the other. If we need to sign a deal with another lower tier game then I'd rather find a better location. Shoot, I'd even suggest the game in Mobile would be a more pleasant site than Shreveport. Or maybe the game in Ft. Worth?

(06-09-2018 07:02 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(06-09-2018 05:44 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(06-09-2018 07:08 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  I agree the most logical one to drop in favor of Vegas is the Independence Bowl.

It's a western SEC locale Bowl in a market we solidly control anyway where the only real attraction besides the game itself is gambling in Shreveport

In other words it would become Vegas Lite anyway so might as well replace it with the real deal.

Nobody would be heartbroken over trading Shreveport for Vegas

Also agree it would have to move up in the pecking order since Vegas would want better teams and let's face it, given the drop off in how people care about the bowls in our new CFP era, if your not in the playoffs then location really really matters as a draw and Vegas is one of the best. No disrespect to our hosts, but who wants to go to Jacksonville or Charlotte or even Dallas over Vegas

I'd like to see the Gator Bowl be Big Ten vs. ACC every year (rather than SEC vs. Big Ten OR ACC). Although I agree that the Independence Bowl does nothing for the SEC. Leave Charlotte (Belk Bowl) as ACC vs SEC though - it's the perfect battleground for those conferences... in the absence of the Peach Bowl, that is.

I'm thinking we may have to give up the Gator or another game in order to take advantage of the Las Vegas opportunity. I agree with you though that we need to keep the Charlotte game...playing the ACC in North Carolina is a natural fit.

Nonetheless, I'm also fine giving up the Shreveport game one way or the other. If we need to sign a deal with another lower tier game then I'd rather find a better location. Shoot, I'd even suggest the game in Mobile would be a more pleasant site than Shreveport. Or maybe the game in Ft. Worth?

As exciting as it may be to have an SEC team play in the Mobile Bowl, not sure if South’s new 25k seat stadium will be ideal for an SEC bowl game. Just another reason I don’t like the idea of bowl games at OCS’s.

When the bowl contracts renew in 2020, there will be a lot of shakeup in destinations. I could even see a contraction of the number of bowls.