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What's Left of This Team vs. What's Left of That Team
CFP Rules
Coming Up Tonight on ESPN
What's Left of This Team vs. What's Left of That Team
CFP Rules
Bowl Games are Done
- Thread starter Prestonyte
- Start date
It saddens me greatly. I grew up loving the bowl season more than any other time in a sports year. Bluebonnet Bowl, Sun Bowl, Gator Bowl, Liberty Bowl......didn't matter. If it was on TV, there were sets of eyes watching it in my house.
I agree with the sentiment, but why do people blame this on the CFP? I don't understand. These bowls have never meant anything and the playoffs did not change that.
Not blaming CFP - just saying CFP Bowl games will be the only ones that matter and the only ones where most of the team will stick around and play.
This point needs to made over and over and over again. It drives me crazy when people, even posters on here, make the argument that the bowls don’t matter anymore because of the playoffs. There’s absolutely positively no basis for the argument. And nobody has ever even offered one. They just repeat the line.
The CFP changed the way people (players, fans, media) thought about the bowl games. Overnight, non-playoff bowl games became the NIT of college football.
Agree they never matter much. But now it won't matter even more because the teams playing will be so depleted. Gator Bowl is an example: Some of the Irish vs. Some of the Gamecocks. Why bother will become the attitude toward these bowl games and they will go away due to lack of interest from all parties (teams, fans, tv audience, network$ and advertiser$).
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This. Bowl game wins were great when we were never used to them. Now that we’ve won a
Huh? That is nothing new at all. Lol overnight it changed. Before the CFP was BCS or bust. Nothing changed. People sure like to act like the evil CFP empire caused everything wrong.
Bowls are gambled on, have national TV coverage, and schools will always want to be involved for the free advertising. Oh, and literally anyone that wants to put a bowl on, or participates in a bowl, makes money (including the coaches, sponsors, cities, TV advertisers, the players soon enough, etc.). So yea, the bowls will be fine.
This "bowls are dead" sentiment is only given by people that have no idea about the economics of the bowls - because bowls only ever existed because of the economics of the bowls. They've always (from the very beginning), been about making cash through exhibition games after the season was over by offering compelling match ups.
This "bowls are dead" sentiment is only given by people that have no idea about the economics of the bowls - because bowls only ever existed because of the economics of the bowls. They've always (from the very beginning), been about making cash through exhibition games after the season was over by offering compelling match ups.
Well, we've never won a Gator Bowl, so there's that. Any Gamecock fan that says we wouldn't crow about beating ND in the Gator Bowl is delusional. That is, until half our team and half ND's team decided to sit it out and turned it into a jamboree game.
Bowl games are just participation trophies, pretty much the sissification of football.
“Aww, you went 6-6 and have no shot at a championship, here play in this game so you feel better.”
No wonder kids have grown up so soft. They don’t have to be champions and still get a nice little trophy at the end.
“Aww, you went 6-6 and have no shot at a championship, here play in this game so you feel better.”
No wonder kids have grown up so soft. They don’t have to be champions and still get a nice little trophy at the end.
It sounds like the kids aren't soft anymore, just business savvy - and the "adults" are the soft ones because they complain about those who recognize what's actually at stake.
You are saying the Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Peach, Fiesta Bowl and others routinely failed to sell out prior to the CFP?
The CFP isnt evil and it's certainly not the only reason non-playff bowls are going the way of the dodo bird, but the attitude about the bowls has definitely changed since the creation of the playoff.
I stated that before the CFP was BCS or bust, then you listed the BCS bowls...you literally said exactly what I did.
The Gator Bowl, Birmingham Bowl, etc. meant exactly the same as they do now. It is nothing to do with the CFP. It has everything to do with having 40+ bowl games and more every year. Interest is spread thinner and thinner as less interesting teams are involved.
Why bother will become the attitude toward these bowl games and they will go away due to lack of interest from all parties
(teams, fans, tv audience, network$ and advertiser$).
But that's just it - where are these compelling matchups going to come from in the future when all the star players sit them out? Sure, they'll still have some novelty value, but who is going to be passionate about watching our 2nd stringers play their 2nd stringers?
You missed my point. I posted the BCS bowls because those are exactly the bowls that ALWAYS sold out before but arent now when they arent hosting the playoffs. It's not just the Gator Bowls and Citrus Bowls of the world that have been made less important.
But even that "some novelty value" will be well worth it because everyone will still be making money. TV money is huge, and will always be, because football is sport number 1 in America and people would rather watch a second rate bowl over the holiday season than not watch it.
You may be right, but I'm not seeing it. Things change and paradigms shift. The TV revenue carries the bowls currently, but I think that's based on the old paradigm of "compelling" matchups. I dont think there's any guarantee the future jamboree matchups will generate the same TV interest. This is new territory for college football, but there is some precedent. In TV revenue, the NFL is the absolute king. But even it finds the majority of its preseason games carried on 2nd-rate local broadcasts rather than big-budget national broadcasts. Football crazed or not, there's not much of a national audience for glorified scrimmages. Of course, ESPN might always use them as a loss-leader to create 3-hour platforms by which to advertise the playoff games - that's almost how they use the bowls now.
Well said. 100% percent agree
Please excuse me but I could not disagree with you more. The press and coaches polls used to name the national championship after the bowl games were played. If you don’t think the bowls then were meaningful then, I can’t help you.
Oh, ok. I didn't know we were going back to the 80's or early 90's, especially considering the CFP started in 2014. If you can't see a difference in 20 bowl games existing back in 1997 before the BCS existed and 43 bowl games existing now, I can't help you.
Anytime an idiot tells me that bowls are meaningless, I ask them if score is still being kept.
This.
For sure, the glut of bowls has drastically decreased their perceived significance. In 1982 there were 16 bowl games. This year, there will be 16 bowls played before Christmas.
If bowls have any perceived lack of significance it's because 63% of FBS teams go to a bowl. That is insane. The #1 thing the NCAA could/should do, is step in and limit the number of bowls. It used to be difficult to get a bowl game, so players knew that getting to one was special. Unless you were one of the elite programs, it didn't happen every year. In your 4 years, you might go once or twice, if you were lucky.
Now it's assumed you should go bowling. That tells you how far it's fallen. To NOT get a bowl game now means you've grossly underperformed. Add in the fact that most teams have 3 wins built into their schedule, so they start the season halfway to bowl eligibility.
The NCAA has also never adjusted the win requirement for bowl eligibility. It's remained at 6 wins, even as schedules have added games, effectively lowering the bar. So they have, at the same time, lowered the bar AND increased the number of games.
Fixing the broken, bloated bowl system would be one thing that immediately improved the quality of the game. Once some 7 and 8 win teams started being left at home during bowl season, it would change the perception of bowls.
If bowls have any perceived lack of significance it's because 63% of FBS teams go to a bowl. That is insane. The #1 thing the NCAA could/should do, is step in and limit the number of bowls. It used to be difficult to get a bowl game, so players knew that getting to one was special. Unless you were one of the elite programs, it didn't happen every year. In your 4 years, you might go once or twice, if you were lucky.
Now it's assumed you should go bowling. That tells you how far it's fallen. To NOT get a bowl game now means you've grossly underperformed. Add in the fact that most teams have 3 wins built into their schedule, so they start the season halfway to bowl eligibility.
The NCAA has also never adjusted the win requirement for bowl eligibility. It's remained at 6 wins, even as schedules have added games, effectively lowering the bar. So they have, at the same time, lowered the bar AND increased the number of games.
Fixing the broken, bloated bowl system would be one thing that immediately improved the quality of the game. Once some 7 and 8 win teams started being left at home during bowl season, it would change the perception of bowls.
The CFP has a little to do with it...but not much. You can say the top 4-6 don't care about the bowls because of playoffs sure....but what about the other 50 or so bowl-eligible teams. Bowls are going to die b/c of Transfer Portal/NIL combo. Overt money in amateur hands has truly ruined CFB very quickly.
ESPN's bowl schedule on the website includes links for tickets on the secondary market. As of this morning, Sugar Bowl tickets were going from just $31. But that's better than the Cotton Bowl tickets which can be purchased for as little as $8. That puts it roughly on par demand-wise with a Woodmont vs Hillcrest high school game.
I don't think bowls will die. Most of the bowls (outside the old NYD bowls) existed as a reward for teams who had a pretty successful season and an excuse for the fans of those teams to take a mini-vacation in a warmer climate while watching their team play. Those reasons will still exist regardless of the Transfer Portal/NIL.
IMO the Transfer Portal/NIL will have a greater impact on whether the universities can continue to hold together the amateur status of college football....and as a result whether universities can continue to be involved in such a venture.
I still think traveling to cheer for half the team you cheered for all season is going to lose its appeal rather quickly.
I honestly don't think many casual fans (whichI believe are the majority of most fan bases) follow it that closely....and assuming they even know, don't care enough. It's only us more rabid fanatics on team athletic sites that would even consider not going as a result.