Avoid The Bowls

The bowl season opens this Saturday. Don’t watch any of these exhibitions until New Year’s Day.

Avoid them completely. Send a message. No one other than the players & close relatives ever remember who wins these games anyway. Give you 3 seconds to guess the winner of the 2008 Humanitarian Bowl (the current Idaho Potato Bowl).

Admit it. You have no idea. And you have no clue about what a Beef O’Brady is, no intention of ever using R & L Carrier, or ever shopping at something called Belk. Just turn the games off and find something better to do with your Saturday, or with any other day leading up the BCS Championship Game. Avert your gaze away from the hypnotic trance that lord football (and gambling) tends to put on people and talk to your family, go shopping with your girlfriend, volunteer at the old folks home, or just do anything that doesn’t involve sitting down and speculating about the merits of the WAC vs. the MAC.

It used to be that the bowls were a great reward for only the top teams in the nation, and they would ride the train or jet off to such exotic locations as Pasadena, Dallas, New Orleans, or Miami; soak in some sun, hang out with cute girls, and maybe, just maybe settle the mythical National Championship. But, geeked up Chamber of Commerce types in other cities began to notice that maybe they could get a few dollars into their town and began to throw their own bowl parties. Some, like the Gator Bowl (Jacksonville) and Sun Bowl (El Paso) still thrive. But does anyone remember the Cherry Bowl (Detroit), Bluebonnet Bowl (Houston), or Freedom Bowl (Anaheim)? Of course, bowls are so lucrative that Detroit and Houston ended up with new games anyway.

Twenty years ago, there were still only 17 bowls. Only the very good teams ever received a bowl invite. New Year’s Day was the pinnacle of the college football season. Now there are 36, and average to below average teams are getting calls just to fill all the available slots. Bowl executive directors use this fact to play teams against one another to make sure that they don’t have to fork over the listed bowl “payout,” thereby increasing profits even when games are played in half empty stadiums; and ensuring they get to keep their cushy jobs. Why continue to enable this system just to watch North Carolina play Missouri in Shreveport? Just so bowl executive directors can make 6 figure salaries running these non-profits? So ESPN can have any excuse to fill up programming hours at a slow time in the sports calendar? How does any of this help the sport?

Send a message this weekend that you don’t want to watch the best regular season in sports culminate in a series of meaningless exhibitions. Change the channel instead of watching any of these games.

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