Top Five Objections To College Football Bowl Games

1. It's all about the money (i.e. it's way too corporate)
In all other sports, the NCAA is very strict about requiring game hosts to cover up all advertising and traces of professional teams in the area. In football, not only is the corporate sponsor part of the name of the bowl, but in many cases, it is the name of the bowl. Tradition, identity, and aesthetics take a back seat to the corporate teat. After 38 years of existence, the Peach Bowl is now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl. The game currently known as the Champs Sports Bowl had previous incarnations as the Sunshine Classic, the Blockbuster Bowl, the Carquest Bowl, the MicronPC Bowl, the MicronPC.com Bowl, and the Tangerine Bowl, all since 1990. Who wants to hang a banner in your stadium when nobody will know what you're talking about three years later? As for the new bowl game in Birmingham, it's name is the unwieldy Papajohns.com Bowl, which I almost guarantee will change in some form once Papa John's Pizza's online ordering system is no longer brand new. One of my favorite moments of every bowl game is when the senior vice president for marketing (or some other corporate suit) appears in a commercial to announce how delighted the company is to be sponsoring the bowl and how they congratulate the student-athletes, etc.

2. It's all about the money (i.e. ticket sales and ratings trump merit)
Bowl games don't create matchups to reward teams with successful seasons. They create matchups to maximize television ratings and ticket sales. This objection is epitomized by the alleged conversation that ABC had with the Rose Bowl, encouraging them to select Notre Dame to play Michigan, despite the fact that the two squads had already met and the game was a blowout. Apparently, ABC was concerned about giving up the strong national TV ratings. While conferences have tie-ins to certain bowls with a sequential selection process, teams need not be chosen in order of finish within the conference, allowing bowl organizers . Bowl games need to reward teams that play well, not fans that travel well.

3. It's all about the money (i.e. there's no good reason not to have a playoff)
The party line is that a Division I-A playoff would never work because it would extend the season for too many teams and keep the students from attending classes. But how would the time commitment and travel be any different than what it is currently required for Divisions I-AA, II, and III? Only the two teams in the final would be playing the full postseason. As it stands now, the bowl season lasts three full weeks, which is just enough time to conduct an eight-team playoff. Ohio State already has seven straight weeks of practice between its final game and the BCS Championship. How could a playoff possibly lengthen the season beyond that?

4. It's all about the money (i.e. schools earn a major payday by qualifying)
Bowl games are big money. But unlike March Madness, where each of the 65 teams selected earns an equal piece of the pie, the payouts for bowl games vary greatly. Take Rutgers, for instance. Had the Scarlet Knights upset West Virginia, they'd be in line for a payday in the neighborhood of $14 million (some of which would be shared with the rest of their conference, though an independent team like Notre Dame gets to keep the entire windfall themselves). Instead, the Knights will drop to the Sun Bowl or the Texas Bowl, with payouts around $1.5 million. The failed two-point conversion in the third overtime on Saturday night cost Rutgers $12.5 million. Even so, the Knights will end up in better financial shape than they did last year, when the $750,000 from the Insight Bowl didn't even cover their expenses. And how much of this money do the players -- you know, the ones who actually do the work -- get? That's right: nothing.

5. Is it all about the money? (e.g. many mediocre bowls with mediocre teams)
The great irony of the college football bowl system is that the great majority of the bowls are completely irrelevant to anybody who is not a relative of a current player or an alumnus of the school. They are played in half-full stadiums at weird times midweek and relegated to obscure cable networks. How can such bowl games even break even. I mean, who in their right mind would head to Boise on New Year's Eve to see a 6-6 Miami team play Nevada unless they were affiliated with either school? In March Madness, all 65 teams have a chance to win it all, at least theoretically, so every single game counts. In football, the field is narrowed down to two teams over a month before the championship (while some teams are eliminated before the season starts, by virtue of playing in the wrong conference), rendering the other 31 bowl games meaningless exhibitions.