96 I get that. But getting the fans into the stadium is better for the bowls than having them stay home and watch the game. A little revenue is better than no revenue for the host city.
For someone who works for the network which owns a virtual monopoly on bowl game coverage, that's an interesting perspective.
I actually like the bowl games are week 1 of the following season. Could make a whole offseason event out of bowl selection is a part of schedule announcement. Bringing them to week 1 fixes all of the other issues of opt outs and meaningless exhibitions.
there will be bowl games - espn owns the rights to all the vowl games and will need the advertising revenue
If not on top 12, I can see others opting out for the portal or draft rather than playing in lower Bowls. Some kids in a 12 team playoff might opt out rather than play in 3 more games they are not paid for and can potentially get injured. Will be interesting to watch here’s how it would have worked or looked this year https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/...ootball-playoff-will-work-teams-schedule-bids
The one where we then annihilated OSU 44-14. I watched that game with an Ohio State fan. He kept bragging about how OSU had the "Best Damn Band In the Land." I told him in the second quarter, "Maybe, so, but, you have, at best, a distant "Second Best Football Team in the Land."
That being true, let’s thought experiment this. Rutgers vs. OSU. Rutgers gets a chance to knock of OSU! OSU best players are thinking NFL (you can blame them all you want but reality is these kids are looking at their future and risk/reward, which is what we all do). Rutgers kids are playing to win, teammates, and for the joy of football - most of those kids are not thinking NFL! People behave within their experience and the lower level teams or FBS play for team, brotherhood, and the chance to win. We as Gator fans do not want that from our Gators - we want championships with elite talent - that is NFL bound. Those kids are looking for championships and paydays, not brotherhood. I hate to say it but Kirby at UGA seems to have the closest to both worlds. Elite players largely committed to the program and dominating. God I hate to say it… This is not binary but a needle to thread where you get elite talent to commit to a larger cause. I think Billy has the right idea but not sure he surrounds himself with the folks that take that elite talent to their maximum potential in a choppy, noisy world.
Let's just say if the bowls make someone money they will continue to have them regardless of the quitters (opt-outs) at the end of the year.
Definitely. 2008 was vs Oklahoma when Tebow was robbed of the Heisman. We played Michigan after the 2007 season and lost (same year they lost to Appie St)!
This notion has been out there for years. Conference championships dilute the meaning of regular season, playoffs dilute the bowls, now extended playoffs seem to really dilute to the point of questioning their viability at all. For the majority of “average fans” I think it does. I never believed it before but the number of opt outs seems to indicate the truth in it. In the last decade our handful of decent years led to several good players not playing in our bowl game. I still can’t believe the backup Texas QB opted out for TP and his team was in playoffs. Speaking for myself - my interest in the sport I’ve loved watching the most for 3 decades is minimal now. And back then I didnt just watch UF and other big teams. I used to watch whatever Thursday night game - Fresno State, Colorado State, whatever. Would watch most bowl games too. Sure I will still watch a UF bowl game with opt outs. But I have very little interest in other teams bowl games when I know most of the best players aren’t playing. Overall health is the sport is broken IMHO. OK end of old guy rant.
Maybe the bowl will need to give up some of that money to incentivize players to play in a bowl that means nothing. For example, a million$ for the game mvp. $50k to all starters. Something like that might help players want to play in games that dont matter.
