Quote:“There’s more drastic change going on in college athletics than I can ever remember and maybe ever in its history,” Carparelli says. “It’s time now to shift our focus to Bowl Season and determine what role we play in the college football calendar. Everything else in college athletics is evolving, Bowl Season will evolve as well.”

Carparelli and bowl officials plan to meet with conference commissioners this spring to explore significant changes that could revolutionize bowl games and pave the way for the future of college football’s postseason. Serious change appears on the horizon, Carparelli says, as bowls work to evolve in the current climate of college football.

https://www.si.com/college/2022/12/28/bo...g-overhaul

A couple of key points:

-Trying to push for first round playoff games to be held at bowl games. The idea is to have that in place for 2026.

-There is talk of bumping bowl elgibility from 6-6 back to 7-5.

-Incorporating more television partners with bowl season.

Another idea expressed in this video is that bowl game payouts in the future might go directly to the players as a form fo NIL payment instead of the conferences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTXKCFABy6s

I doubt first rounds go to bowl games, Too many of the schools want that home game.

7-5 would mean bowl reduction, which I am for, but doubt G5 wants or espn want.

I do think giving some of the bowl payouts to the players is a good idea. But some bowls pay so low that the may be unfeasible.

I'll never understand why some who claim to love football advocate for less football (which is what would happen if eligibility goes up to 7-5). Which bowls would the executive director cut? Is he going to pay the TV networks money to offset those viewership losses?

If I'm home and there's a bowl game happening, there's a pretty good chance I have it on my TV, even if it's only for background noise. I want more football, not less football.

I think 7-5 might have less to do with the G teams which for them is a pretty good season but more to do with P teams who want quality over quantity in the bowl season.

Going to 7-5 would cut some dead wood games IMO.

(11-19-2023 11:34 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  I'll never understand why some who claim to love football advocate for less football (which is what would happen if eligibility goes up to 7-5). Which bowls would the executive director cut? Is he going to pay the TV networks money to offset those viewership losses?

If I'm home and there's a bowl game happening, there's a pretty good chance I have it on my TV, even if it's only for background noise. I want more football, not less football.

Yes, we get so little College Football. It seems like the season just started and yet six days from now is the last day of the regular season.

I want as much CFB as I can get. I watch as many of those 6-6 vs 6-6 bowl games as I can, usually most of them. Give me a robust two weeks of bowl games leading up to the NY6 games.

If USF loses next week, thus failing to become bowl eligible, our season would have started in September and ended in November. All of 84 days. Compared to 281 days with no USF football. And that's every season. Even if we make a bowl, it probably becomes something like 105 days of the season compared to 260 with no football.

I want more college football, not less.

(11-19-2023 12:21 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 11:34 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  I'll never understand why some who claim to love football advocate for less football (which is what would happen if eligibility goes up to 7-5). Which bowls would the executive director cut? Is he going to pay the TV networks money to offset those viewership losses?

If I'm home and there's a bowl game happening, there's a pretty good chance I have it on my TV, even if it's only for background noise. I want more football, not less football.

Yes, we get so little College Football. It seems like the season just started and yet six days from now is the last day of the regular season.

I want as much CFB as I can get. I watch as many of those 6-6 vs 6-6 bowl games as I can, usually most of them. Give me a robust two weeks of bowl games leading up to the NY6 games.

If USF loses next week, thus failing to become bowl eligible, our season would have started in September and ended in November. All of 84 days. Compared to 281 days with no USF football. And that's every season. Even if we make a bowl, it probably becomes something like 105 days of the season compared to 260 with no football.

I want more college football, not less.

We spend 3/4 of our time pining for CFB. I don't see any need to cut out that final few weeks, it's great for the fans, the players, the programs, and it supports CFB enthusiasm in some areas that may not have that much. If ESPN or someone else wants to broadcast it, why cut it back so that fewer teams qualify?

The bowls would love having 16 sites rotating into the 4 first-round games. The article mentions mid-December weather in Big Ten country as a reason to use neutral sites.

Of course the conferences would love to cut out the middleman bowls altogether. Sure there is brand cache with “Rose Bowl” and maybe a few others. But I don’t think anybody would care if their team played in the Outback Bowl or Citrus Bowl.

I actually think there is room for individual conferences to contract out the playoff games. This is how revenue has tilted toward the “haves” over the last 40 years. The Big Ten could avoid foul weather and contract with Las Vegas for their #2 team; the SEC could do the same. The CFP would then turn around and sell these to TV partners as part of a larger playoff.

10 years ago we thought the BCS would do a top-down fix of the playoff, but it was the conferences who contracted the game sites. The CFP again has talked about imposing a top-down playoff structure, but I won’t be surprised when we get an announcement that the Big Ten has signed another deal with the Rose Bowl and maybe Vegas for #2.

It makes sense for the Football “Bowl” Subdivision to hold their playoff utilizing bowl games.

I think they are not thinking at all!

Want to make the minor bowls relevant? Let them become preseason bowls. Let them host the 13th game in week -1. The last week of August or the next to last week of August or both. Let them get the networks to foot half off the payout.

Why would the networks do it? It's a dead time in need of some life! You can match up better games if it is essentially preseason and the interest would be higher.

Why would minor bowls do it? To get better exposure, match better teams, and maximize travel crowds. Fans would turn out for Auburn vs N.C. State in Charlotte to open the season. They would fill the Gator bowl for Florida vs Miami preseason. Hell, they would even turn out for the Liberty Bowl to get Ole Miss vs Iowa.

Save the Cotton, Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta for a rotation of the later CFP destination rounds.

Do this and the Fans get a jump on the season, the minor bowls get exposure, better crowds and get TV to help them, the AD's get extra revenue, TV's cover a dead spot, and everyone wins. You could even add minor bowls, and nobody would care. If not to make it fair allow all teams not invited to minor bowls to stage their own preseason games at home or neutral sites. And use that to take college football to areas usually not reached due to the Winter conditions of January. Late August should be good for every region.

And everyone needs to face reality. An expanded CFP will suck the oxygen out of the room for the minor bowls if they insist on playing in December. Do this and all will survive and thrive. Don't and kiss the minor bowls goodbye!

The date of the original article is December 2022 (written by Ross Dellinger when he was still with SI). The information is almost certainly outdated.

Nonetheless, the Bowl system will be in for significant changes with the expanded playoffs taken on a more important role. I do not think it will include first round games played at neutral bowl sites. If anything, I believe the trend will go the other direction with the second round games being played at campus sites. The Top 4 teams will see the excitement that on-campus playoff games generate and will want to have that advantage also. On campus sites are also much more fan friendly for top teams when there are multiple rounds of playoffs.

My general thoughts on the topic:

Create a pre-season (weeks 0 and 00) for FBS vs FCS exhibitions

12 game regular season against exclusively FBS opponents

Peg bowl eligibility to finishing 7-5 or better in the regular season
———

Opening round play off games should be home site affairs

Consolidate non-CFP bowls to the better destinations and consider a double header format or possibly even little 4 team tournaments. (Ex. A Citrus Bowl tournament in Orlando)

Bowl Season website is a good resource...

https://bowlseason.com/index.aspx

(11-19-2023 09:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  My general thoughts on the topic:

Create a pre-season (weeks 0 and 00) for FBS vs FCS exhibitions

12 game regular season against exclusively FBS opponents

Peg bowl eligibility to finishing 7-5 or better in the regular season
———

Opening round play off games should be home site affairs

Consolidate non-CFP bowls to the better destinations and consider a double header format or possibly even little 4 team tournaments. (Ex. A Citrus Bowl tournament in Orlando)

You'd be doing away with them entirely and shutting down FCS programs by the dozens. People aren't going to pay to watch an exhibition, not the kind of money that would make it worthwhile. Which means the big programs wouldn't have the money for FCS buy games, which prop those programs up.

This article is from 10 months ago, so I’m not sure why this is being posted now.

I think moving first round games away from campus is a non-starter. Once people see the spectacle of playoff home games next year, there’s no going back to neutral sites for that round. The quarterfinals are different because that’s during the traditional New Years Day timeframe for bowl travel, anyway.

Unless the Big Ten and SEC have a desire to change bowl eligibility to 7 wins compared to 6 wins, that’s not happening, either.

The only thing I could reasonably see happening is moving some bowls to the week after the CCGs since that week is devoid of college football outside of Army-Navy and the first round of the CFP is taking what has traditionally been the first weekend of bowl games.

(11-20-2023 05:23 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  This article is from 10 months ago, so I’m not sure why this is being posted now.

Because its bowl season.

(11-20-2023 05:19 PM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-19-2023 09:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  My general thoughts on the topic:

Create a pre-season (weeks 0 and 00) for FBS vs FCS exhibitions

12 game regular season against exclusively FBS opponents

Peg bowl eligibility to finishing 7-5 or better in the regular season
———

Opening round play off games should be home site affairs

Consolidate non-CFP bowls to the better destinations and consider a double header format or possibly even little 4 team tournaments. (Ex. A Citrus Bowl tournament in Orlando)

You'd be doing away with them entirely and shutting down FCS programs by the dozens. People aren't going to pay to watch an exhibition, not the kind of money that would make it worthwhile. Which means the big programs wouldn't have the money for FCS buy games, which prop those programs up.

Yeah - I don’t get the proposals for preseason exhibitions. Look at the NFL wanting to eliminate preseason games - even they know that they are a poor product and essentially just a necessary evil to provide some live game experience for non-starters that you’re not worried if they get hurt.

The entire value of FCS opponents is that they are an inexpensive buy game that counts for bowl eligibility. Eliminating them from regular season records for bowl eligibility purposes kills the value of those FCS games entirely. Personally, I don’t have the heartburn that a lot of fans seem to have about playing them or counting them for bowl eligibility.

The old bowls were created to sell hotel rooms and meals. The new ones are created to fill TV time slots.

We're sports geeks here, but you should not underestimate the power of the hotel/restaurant industry behind the scenes of the bowl game planning. They want games scheduled during the holidays when people will travel.

(11-20-2023 05:59 PM)Claw Wrote:  The old bowls were created to sell hotel rooms and meals. The new ones are created to fill TV time slots.

We're sports geeks here, but you should not underestimate the power of the hotel/restaurant industry behind the scenes of the bowl game planning. They want games scheduled during the holidays when people will travel.

The last time of the year anyone wants to travel is around Christmas, and then they aren't heading to an also ran bowl, but to family. A lot more people would attend an open game on a Saturday toward the end of August, especially one in a dome. It's also the end of Summer and vacations are in order.

How about we just convert half of these Post-Season Bowls to Kickoff Games in Week 0-1?