College Bowls are everywhere.  The number of teams making a bowl game has been steadily climbing over the past few years.   This year 78 teams made a bowl game.  Including the National Championship game that makes 40 bowl games for the 2018 – 2019 bowl season.   Included in the 78 teams are 10 teams with a non winning record.   Ten teams that had a 6 – 6 record made it to a Bowl game.  Some people seem to think that this is a problem.  That a team should not be rewarded for going .500.

The truth here is that there are as many bowl games as the market will allow.   At least for now.  This could be a fluid number that may go up or go down.  It is difficult to tell for sure.   If the Bowl Game was not bringing in at least some money then it would not exist.   Even though most of the stadiums are relatively empty for many of these games it really does not matter.  There is enough money coming in from the media sell that all expenses are covered and the locations are pulling in some revenue.   The financial part is covered.  If a Bowl starts to fail to make a profit then it will go away.

The Revenue is there

This revenue is not even taking into account the effect that the people coming into the community for the game have on the local businesses.   Lets say that only 15,000 people attend the game.  Lets say those 15,000 people spend $200 each for hotel, food and other entertainment.  That brings in over $3 million to the local economy.   A small business that picks up even a small amount of that means a lot.   These are very conservative estimates so I am sure that the numbers are much larger.

Clearly the money will be there so what about if a team deserves to go to a Bowl or not.   If you think about how the Bowls were run before the 80’s and then after the 80’s.  There is a clear separation of what the Bowls mean.   If you look before the 80’s the Bowls were a reward for having a great season.  There was not nearly as many Bowl games so not nearly as many teams made it to a bowl.   Then Cities and the NCAA realized that the Bowl games were worth a lot of money.   To the Towns, teams and the media.   Thus it led to expansion of the games.   It started a little slow then grew quite quickly in the 90’s.  Mostly due to ESPN being able to make money off of airing all these games.

If you Hate them so much don’t watch

The people that are hating on the current bowl games.  Saying that they mean nothing and there is no reason to watch them.  Are confusing their own views with how the rest of the people are looking at things.  One comment was about how the people in the stands are only the friends and family of the players.  That very well may be true.  But I don’t understand why that would bother you.  The other argument was that these games are meaningless.  YES you are correct for you they are meaningless.

Bowl Games Still mean something to the Players

In the grand scheme of the playoff they are meaningless.  Even if they expand the playoff they will still be meaningless.  In the 80’s before the BCS they were also meaningless.  That part will not change.  Where it is not meaningless is for the player that was good enough to play in College but has no chance of making it to the pros.  This is it.  The one last game that they get to participate in and finish out their college career.  There is nothing wrong with those players getting to end their college and football career by playing in a bowl game.   A nice reward for all the time and effort that they put in.

I am fine with all of this.  There is no problem with a large number of teams making it to the College Bowl Games.   Expansion is fine and will meet its natural end when the games fail to make money.   I am sure there is a breaking point.  Not sure what that point is yet.   I would not want to watch a bowl game matching up to 1-11 teams.   I am pretty sure it would never come to that.  Pretty sure but anything can happen.  If a bowl finds a way to make money from a match up of two 1 – 11 teams then we will have that bowl game.

We already talked about how they are better attended then it looks on tv.  So that argument means nothing here.   The other thing.  If you don’t like it there is a simple solution.   Just don’t watch it.  Easy as can be.   Two of the local radios guys where I live were complaining about how bad all these bowl games are.  Maybe they are.  They are not any worse than any of the regular season games.  All I know is that you have a choice to make.  If you want to watch them.  Then make that choice.  If you don’t want to watch them.  Then make that choice.  It really is pretty simple.

As long as the games keep making money.  Cities are going to host them.  ESPN or some other media partner is going to air them.    The players and schools come out on top in this.

Read our post about skipping bowl games here.