For all the big bowl supporters out there

[Seinfeld]

Aside from the nostalgia factor, can someone explain to me why they're so great for the fans? I don't know whether it's the sheer quantity, the constantly changing names from one corporate name to another, or the half empty stadiums at a lot of them, but I've cared less about the bowl games this year than any other I can remember. The Baylor game was great along with a couple others but for the most part, I couldn't have cared less about most of these unless there was an SEC team in it.

My main gripe in all this is that some of the main defensive arguments I hear from people in order to bash a playoff scenario is that it would ruin the bowl system and it would make all other games less meaningful. Well, for one, I don't know how it would be possible to make postseason games more meaningless than they currently are. And two, I don't understand how the regular season becomes less meaningful when you'd go from currently only having 4-5 teams with a legit shot at the title towards the latter part of the season to as many as 20-25 teams fighting for playoff spots.

What do you guys love so much about the bowl system that's now in place?

 

[was21]

nm

 

[RebelBruiser]

The BCS already makes the bowls meaningless. A playoff wouldn't make them more meaningless.

The tie ins have really bastardized some of the bowls though.

The Gator used to be elite. This year it had two 6-6 unranked teams. The Cotton used to often have two Top 10 teams. This year it does again by some good fortune, but very often it has 3 and 4 loss teams.

I haven't watched the bowls nearly as much since the BCS decided to spread out the schedule so much. NYD used to be loads of fun. Not anymore. Even in the early BCS days it was still fun when the only game moved off NYD was the title game, played a night later. Now though NYD is ruined.

And of course the number of bowls hurts too. We spend 2 weeks watching bowl games from teams we haven't seen all year as if they mean something. Essentially all you have to do to make a bowl game is not completely suck. Look at the SEC. The only teams not in a bowl this year were UT, Kentucky, and Ole Miss. None of those teams were even mediocre. Mediocrity is rewarded with the bowl system, and there isn't much to distinguish anymore between the mediocre bowls and the good ones.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

...I was into the Music City Bowl but that's because my favorite team played in the Music City Bowl.


As for the rest of them, I watch them randomly at best.


If the NCAA is determined to have 40 bowls (which is the current trajectory), 2 things need to change:


1) Spread the bowls out more, & over more TV networks.


The majority of bowls are packed into the time frame of Dec. 30-Jan. 2. On top of that, ESPN shows 80% of the bowls.

Show a bowl a day beginning a week after the regular season ends, and 3 on Saturdays until Jan. 1. Then show 4 on Jan. 1 but scattered around 4 different networks instead of just ESPN & ABC. Then the rest show after Jan. 1 until the NC game.


2) Unless you are playing in the NC game, don't send teams to bowls that are not 2,000 miles away. Destroy the current conference tie-in format & just send teams to bowls within their region of the country. That will mean reasonable travel distance for the fans which will mean fuller stadiums & more money for the bowl sponsors.

 

[was21]

most of them...others I just keep up with the scores...makes it more interesting...it's all over saturated.