College football may have the best regular season of any sport, but the worst post-season imaginable. The bowl system is utterly boring. After a long break, many teams play sloppy football, and even more teams, disappointed with their season, play uninspired football. Moreover, most of the matchups are completely uninteresting. Ticket sales reflect the low quality of the product, even at the supposed elite bowls. The University of Utah is going to a BCS bowl, and they cannot sell their allotment. Other schools are also having problems:
Ohio State held a rare public sale for tickets to the Fiesta Bowl where the Buckeyes will play Texas. Normally its bowl tickets go to season ticket holders, faculty, staff, donors and any others deemed important enough to be on a priority list. No need for such exclusivity this year.
Texas also had a public sale. Perhaps the matchup of the teams wasn't that appealing to fans since they've played in recent years or maybe fans decided the $155 they were expected to shell out for tickets could be better spent elsewhere.
Other schools are in even worse situations. Wisconsin, which traditionally travels well, reportedly has sold only about 3,000 of the 12,000 tickets it was alloted for the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, and that includes tickets for Wisconsin's traveling party.
Tickets for the Orange Bowl between Cincinnati and Virginia Tech can be had for $15 on the internet.
Blame the economy for the slow ticket sales, or the lack of a playoff system or the NCAA's policy that basically any entrepreneur who wants to start a bowl game can, which has made going to a bowl game not that big of a deal anymore.
Certainly, fans are saying, the games aren't worth the price of admission.
Of course, there is a simple solution to this problem. It's a solution endorsed by our President-elect and every other right-thinking fan of the sport. Playoff.
I have been saying this for a long time, but I just felt the need to say it again.
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1. Posted by pwb on December 29, 2008 @ 0:34 | Permalink
Why doesn't anyone ever ridicule the idea that a playoff extends the season too long?
2. Posted by Michael Risch on December 29, 2008 @ 7:31 | Permalink
Gregg Easterbrook makes what I consider a compelling argument for the bowl system: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/071204 and http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/081202
I suspect that the issue this year is the economy. For WVU and NC, travel to Charlotte to play in the famed Meineke Car Care Bowl was cheap for both sides. I think the game sold out, or pretty close to it -73000.
Even the vaunted New Mexico Bowl had a low but respectable 24000 attendance - CSU is a 6 hour drive away.
Both games were quite exciting and well played (on offense, anyway) by both teams, and I'm sure the folks in Fort Collins had no trouble taking money from the New Mexico travel board, because there is no way they will see a playoff anytime soon.
3. Posted by Cathy on December 29, 2008 @ 8:16 | Permalink
An upside I can see to the current bowl system is that it keeps fans more engaged in the end of the regular season* because there's something to keep playing for. A team may know midway through the season whether they're going to be atop their division, but if there's still something on the line they'll play tough through the end. In whatever system we have, we'd want that kind of full-season intensity to be encouraged.
* Except for $tanfurd fans, who didn't show up to this year's Big Game, even though if they'd won they would have gotten to go to a bowl game. Losers.
4. Posted by brayden on December 29, 2008 @ 9:01 | Permalink
I don't buy the whole regular season intensity argument for not installing a playoff. There is no way that a college football playoff could be expanded enough to invite more than 8 or so teams. With only 8 teams making the playoffs, the regular season would still really, really matter. I think it would actually make the regular season more exciting because it means that the championship aspirations would stay alive for more teams for a longer period of time.
5. Posted by Gordon Smith on December 29, 2008 @ 9:19 | Permalink
Brayden is right about the effect of the playoff on the regular season. You could still salvage the existing BCS bowls by making them part of the playoff, and there would be nothing preventing the other existing bowls from picking up the teams that didn't make the playoffs. The one nice thing about the bowls is that more than one team can end the season with a win -- this is especially important for programs that are rebuilding -- and that would still be possible with a playoff.
6. Posted by M. Barnhill on December 29, 2008 @ 18:59 | Permalink
It could be worse. As of early December the Humanitarian bowl sold only 24 tickets; Maryland had sold 16 tickets and Nevada 8.
http://www.2news.tv/news/35767489.html
7. Posted by Jake on December 29, 2008 @ 20:40 | Permalink
Bring back the venerable Southwestern Conference and restore the Cotton Bowl to its once unparalled position among New Years Day events!
8. Posted by Joe Goebel on January 11, 2009 @ 13:54 | Permalink
A playoff would be all upside to division I college football. The only reason it doesn't happen is powerful university presidents who are afraid of losing their payday if their top seeded teams get beat in the early rounds. My vote is for the top 16 teams playing a 4 round single elimination. that allows you to use the top 15 bowls for the playoffs and all the other bowls can still be played. The total number of bowl participants will be around 10% to 20% less, with no great loss to anyone, since as we all agree, most of the no-name bowls result in uninspired play and boring football.
The players and teams would love it! I played div. I in the Pac-10 and enjoyed 5 strait bowl wins, including 3 Rose Bowl wins and a Fiesta win. If wins in those bowls would have given us a chance to compete for the national championship, it would never take away the RoseBowl win. But, wow, would it have increased the excitement!
The fans want it. NO ONE likes the BCS. EVERYONE wants a playoff. As a fan, I don't care about any of the bowls. I watch them as a casual observer and only tune in when its convenient. I watch small parts of maybe a couple games a year. But if the winners advanced, if underdogs could write cinderella stories that mattered (think Utah, BoiseState), I would absolutely be far more interested to watch other bowls. There is a reason that March Madness is so big.
Schools should want it, and so should ecomomists. There would be much better advertising revenues, since so many more people would be interested. The additional buzz alone would support a great deal more sports related promotions during the holiday season.
JG
9. Posted by Free Football Streaming on March 9, 2011 @ 2:09 | Permalink
lol
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