Maybe it’s just me, but so far these have been some seriously unwatchable games. The ER in Albuquerque is going to be busy sewing the toes back on both teams who participated in the Shiny Rocks ■■■■■■■■■■■■
To the rest we have seen so far…
Watching a bunch of third and fourth-string players play a spring game at the end of the season for a trophy that has no recruiting value; that is, in essence, a time filler for Disney Sports only matters to gambling degenerates, is not a good product. Hopefully the transition to the 12 team playoff in 2024 will get some of these trash can bowl games killed, so we never see another 6-win school lose their program millions by playing in a meaningless game.
That’s sad man. It was a fun game and I am glad I flew out for it. Got to see family and a couple friends from college I haven’t seen in 7-8 years. It really was a great time.
Whether it is the annual turkey bowl, or a low class bowl game. Football is Football and it was fun to be there and watch the game that I love.
I disagree. Have you seen Oregon State fans? They are ecstatic.
College football is the ones sport where a lot of teams can end the season on a high note. Every other sport, only one fan base feels like a million bucks at the end of the year.
But not college football. Oregon State is on top of the world. BYU fans have hope. Whoever wins between Penn State and Utah will have high hopes for next year.
What sucks is bowl games have been made meaningless by the BCS and upcoming playoff. We will lose that.
I think bowls games, many at least, became meaningless when there were 42 created. So, 84 out of a 130 something schools go bowling. Knock 1/3 to 1/2 of those out and bowl games may become special for the teams that don’t make the playoffs. Just saying that there are too many bowls, and therefore only a few are interesting or special to a majority of the country.
Yes, I know, the “it’s special to the teams involved.” Other than the extra practice, I’m not so certain.
For far, the only games to push past 50 percent in attendance were played in small venues, meaning whoever wants to run the “fans card” out there has to be joking. “The Fans” aren’t there! They are at home getting ready for the holidays. If you are a fan who went to see the game at the venue, great. Hope you enjoyed your road trip; but to say any schools fans base “represented” at any of these games so far is laughable.
Most of these games won’t even show up on a Nielsen rating as being watched. Based on their TV ratings (if these games weren’t “content filler”) these “Bowl Games” would be cancelled by the networks. In short, not even their “fans” are watching them.
If it weren’t for conference contracts, most of these schools would be opting out of these games as a money-saving measure. Unlike the PAC 12, who funds a school’s travel costs for post season participation, many schools have to eat those costs to go play in the game. Many conferences also require the “participating school” to share their bowl revenues with the rest of the teams in the conference (the PAC 12 doesn’t have this requirement). In short, unless you are either playing in your own backyard, or in a NY6 Bowl, your school could be losing millions; but the conference TV contracts all stipulate that unless a school is under NCAA sanction, or if there is some force majeure reason why a school cannot participate, the school must accept the bid and play.
So I will say it again, unless you are a degenerate gambler or a fan with unlimited resources that can afford to travel to a pre-Christmas Bowl game, these games simply don’t matter just that much.
I only remember the Utes turning down a bowl opportunity once in the 2020 pandemic year. All of those minor bowls must have meant something to them. For as bad as they seem to be, you rarely hear a school saying they won’t go to any bowl.
First paragraph: I don’t know what your point is. No one said anything about that straw man.
Second: again, what’s your point? That not as many people watch them? I’d counter that an Oregon State game in September on a Saturday on FS1 has a lot of Oregon State AND non Oregon State fans watching the game. But their bowl game? I didn’t realize they had even started until midway through BYU’s bowl game. But that doesn’t mean Oregon State fans weren’t watching the game.
Third: I mean, the mere fact that the P12 schools have collectively agreed to take less money to send the teams to bowl games shows a lot of value there.
I’ll say what I said above:
“College football is the ones sport where a lot of teams can end the season on a high note.”
I don’t watch them, unless there is a reason to watch. But even though I watched some of the Shiny Rocks Bowl, it really was a meaningless bowl game. What does it do for either program, other than give them extra practice?
I watch most of the games because I like watching college football. There is no question that the quality of these pre-Christmas games is pretty poor. Part of that is the opt-outs but many of the teams are also mediocre at best.
That is the big deal about the bowls. Coach Mac said that getting a bowl bid was crucial, just for the extra practice. It was one (of several) of the reasons that byu-provo stayed ahead of us as a program in the 80’s. So, if that is true, and many bowl games are scrapped, then possibly the rich will just keep getting richer.