Not enough bowl eligible teams this year.

Yes - every year is a record year. They keep adding more bowl games despite struggling to fill the games the previous year. It's gotten completely absurd, and I can't imagine the playoff has helped the situationby dropping interest in most of the non-playoff bowls a little more.

 

Figures. Texas State was one of 9 bowl eligible teams to not get a bid in 2013 and one of 5 bowl eligible teams to not get a bid on 2014. Now that they need teams to fill all the bowls, Texas State sucks and is 3-8.

Bowl games make money through ads, sponsors, and TV contracts. Even the worst bowl games with nobody in the stands get higher ratings than most other programming on at the same time.

 

I know I'm probably in the minority on this, and the percentage of my total posts that come in college football-related threads probably hints at the fact that I'm the target market for bowl games, but I don't have any real problem with the growing number of bowl games.

As long as there are venues willing to field them, sponsors willing to sponsor them, and teams willing to take part, I don't see what the problem is. At this point, we all acknowledge that they're largely filler programming for ESPN during the holidays and that all but a small handful of games, outside of the CFP games, have any real significance, but for the life of me, I can't grasp why the negative reaction to the number of bowl games is generally so visceral. To me, any college football that ESPN (or whoever else) wants to put on my television is welcome.

 

Sure - but even that seems to be getting less. I don't know about TV contracts, but there are 5 or 6 bowls that didn't even get a name sponsor this year ("Birmingham Bowl", etc).

For example, there is a Miami Beach Bowl played on a random Monday at 1:30PM. No title sponsor and I can't imagine ESPN would need to pay much at all for rights to televise that.

 

I don't have a problem with them in and of themselves. I think they suck when 5-7 teams start getting in and it stops being a reward for a good season. And I think it really sucks when the good teams end up being spread out more, so instead of having top-25 matchups, you get a bunch of top-25 teams playing random unranked teams. That was a bigger problem a few years ago, but now they are doing a better job of consolidating the top matchups, so those of us not interested can just ignore the crappier games.

 

so that means the UT Austin Horns have a chance?!?!?!?

 

They do. I think they're in if they beat Baylor. They'd be a top draw out of what's available.

 

I remember when it used to be a big deal to get into a New Years Day bowl. That was the benchmark on whether you had a good season or not. It used to be so much fun watching the SWC champ play in the Cotton Bowl every year.

Now, it seems like there are so many bowls that they start in mid-December and go deep into January. Playing on New Years Day doesn't matter anymore.

This is the time of year I love being from a (good) FCS school. Our 20-team playoff is so much fun. How awesome would it be if the FBS adopted it?

 

It always bothered me that there were random lower level bowl games after some of the Majors. This year, the last game before the championship game is the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl. It may just be me, but aside from the championship game, I don't think there should be any other games after the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, and Rose (and maybe Cotton and Peach).

 

The point about the matchups being diluted is a good one. I suppose that is something that has bothered me about the system in the past.