With the exception of a handful of games, bowl attendance has been dropping. According to this article (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/co...0130110/college-football-bowl-system-changes/) from January of this year, bowl attendance has dropped 2% each year over the last two years. It's about value creation. People have spent large sums of money on these games all year and if they don't see value in the bowl game, they aint going. It costs a ton of dough to enjoy this sport live. And people's wallets are worn out. So you're going to have to create value and excitement. Personally if I had a bunch of extra money laying around, I would probably go to the game in Tampa. Get away to some sun and warmth, watch a little football, have a good cigar ... But if it were just the game. I have a big TV, a good chair and a highly effective refrigerator nearby. I don't think 35 bowl games is a good number. I think fewer bowl games is a good number. I think it's time to depart from tradition and continue to move forward of decreasing their significance while transitioning to a true CFB Championship. Playoffs baby! Playoffs! Bowls have become less enticing and the appetite for a true, stand-at-the-top Champion is increasing. A playoff would also help address some of the imbalance in regular season schedule strengths. We're getting closer and closer. The BCS system ends after this bowl season and we enter into a new day of CFB post-season. I also failed to understand the importance and the impact of the "Champions Bowl" (http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...ns-bowl-changes-college-footballs-big-picture). It's old news but when it was announced, I gave it a nod and moved on to something else. It's pretty interesting the potential series of events this bowl sets into motion. The NCAA should be nervous ... as should several schools and conferences.
Not only do I identify with that...I sympathize. I got a few good laughs out of Michigan folk when they were down for the Super Regionals in softball a few years ago.
The biggest part of the problem is way too many bowls. A 7-5 or 8-4 MAC or CUSA team in a bowl may be exciting because they've been paying $25 to see games and $7 to park to watch their team all season. It's a winter vacation in a place with good weather after a season that met or possibly exceeded fan expectations. At LSU a 7 or 8 win season culminating in a second or third tier bowl is insulting. After spending hundreds of dollars each weekend of the season to see a product that isn't horrible but well below many fans expectations (realistic or not), a mediocre bowl berth isn't anything to get excited about. Spending a couple thousand more dollars for the privilege of seeing your team possibly be embarrassed by "lesser" competition is not an enticement. This "everybody gets a medal" mentality has gotten out of hand and it's our fault. How do we fix it? I have stopped supporting bowls that have no business existing or a team in a bowl that has no business being there. I love my LSU Tigers and always will. I will 1) not attend a bowl game of team with 8 or fewer wins. That doesn't deserve my money. 9 wins or better to get me to pay big $$$ and use vacation time. 2) I won't attend a bowl game for a team that does not finish at least 4th in the conference. There's no copper, iron, or lead metals. They stop at bronze. 4th place is a gift because I'm generous. 3) 7 wins isn't special. Big time programs have 7 home games and at least 3 of those are cupcakes every year. 7 wins means nothing. What's that? You are bowl eligible with 6 wins now? A .500 season deserves recognition? Dear sweet Lord! There are 10 FBS football conferences with between 10 and 16 team each. Taking only the top 4 at most from any one conference gives 40 teams, 20 bowls. That's plenty. If you miss that cutoff, you don't deserve to go to a bowl. And hell yes, you bet your sweet ass a 2nd place 9-3 American Conference team is going to get snubbed for a 4th place 8-4 SEC team. Beat ranked opponents, then complain. It's supposed to be a reward for superior play over the course of a season. Not a right that every player entitled to for participation even if their team is mediocre. There are 35 bowls this year. 35! There's no way in hell that there are 70 teams that deserve to play in bowls. It's our fault for supporting them. As long as they make money they will exist. If fans stop going and watching and they will fail financially and only the bowls that matter will be able to survive. This year 7 teams with 6-6 records and 16 teams with 7-5 records are playing in bowls. Just eliminating those 23 bottom feeders would help tremendously by eliminating 12 worthless bowls. I will watch the Tigers on TV but I will not take even free tickets to go watch them in person this year. Sorry Joe. I paid a shit ton to see the couple of games i could make it to this year. That'll have to be enough for you and the TAF boys this season.
Wow... so your team is 9-3 and doesn't deserve your presence at a bowl game. Let me ponder that thought for a minute....it's moments like this that I realize I'll never quit drinking.... I agree there's too many bowls, but I'm not sure why it's "the biggest part of the problem". I simply choose the ones I want to watch and punish the rest with my indifference. The list of teams that can consistently string together 8 and 9 win seasons is a short list indeed. If we only allow the "chosen few" to those extended weeks of practice and the chance to "bowl talk" recruits, we make the gap between the haves and the have-nots even wider. Is this what we want? In 2010, our Mickey Mouse 7-5 team got pitted against a 10-2 Blaine Gabbert led Missouri team in the Insight Bowl (or was it the Out-Of-Sight bowl...).... we won 27-24 and the bowl set an attendence record. Is this good for college football or not? Even worse, was our Minnie Mouse 6-6 team that played 9-3 Texas in 2006. We lost 26-24, finishing 6-7. Still set an attendence record for that bowl. That game probably meant nothing to an SEC fan, but perhaps it held some meaning for the schools that played. If I was king (or Cock of the Walk), I'd have a playoff of just the conference champions and let the rest of the teams play in whatever game they got invited to... it would be that simple. SEC fans, and I see why, would only want a system that lets them have at least two teams in the playoffs, if not more. It is in these moments of confusion that we find "the biggest part of the problem", imo.
I bought a ticket to the UGA game from a georgia fan. face value was $40 my friend bought a ticket at the game from an LSU fan who bought it through LSU. face value was $70. my ticket was better moral of the story. LSU added $30 to every ticket they bought from UGA and sold to LSU fans
Do you think your fans would be excited for outback bowl if you had played in 2 national championships in the past 10 years?
My more than honest reply is I don't know. We've never gotten to wear that slipper. I do know that we've been to two BCS bowls, finished in the top ten in the final rankings four times in the BCS era and, yes, we still see playing in the Outback or CapOne as an honor. I would add most of our fan base looks forward to playing SEC teams. What would we be if we had won National Championships? There's a part of me that shudders at the thought. I found it somewhat disturbing when I read about the Oregon players talking down the Rose Bowl, after they had lost their shot at the BCS championship game. Is this where all this is going? I now sense a piece of that thinking in some of the threads here. It gives me comfort to know when the Hawkeyes lose a game that the other team was actually better (for the most part!). It saves me all that mindless energy of thinking up all the excuses after losses.
