re: The Case to reduce Present Bowl System

In 1990, there was only like 18 Bowl games. ESPN created a majority of these bowl games for I’m sure content on their expanding platform; ESPN2, ESPNU, etc.

Then a short 10 years later after over saturating the market, they turned their attention to the BCS and the pursuit of an ever expanding playoff and pushing the narratives that the only thing that matters is the playoff and that Bowl Games are meaningless and players shouldn’t play if they have a future.

Every issue or problem in sports has a direct link to an ESPN directive or talking point. What ever the “world wide leader” wants, it eventually gets.

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Every issue or problem in sports has a direct link to an ESPN directive or talking point.

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My favorite is when they complain about conference realignment. Or when they make a documentary about the old Big East and conveniently leave out the part where they murdered the conference.

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Bowl games certainly don’t have the prestige they once did. I’m sure they could cut a couple of them. But I also like that some of the smaller schools get a chance to play, earn money for their program, and players get the experience and the swag. Just remember the excitement of going to the independence bowl. I was Thrilled.

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I admit I used to love going to bowl games. Those days are long gone. I’d much rather them expand the playoffs and see LSU get a chance at a natty, or the season just end if it’s mediocre.

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The Case to reduce Present Bowl System

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why does this need a case you friggin' football Grinch

I like to watch college football on TV almost every day during the holiday season. Don't care if its just a greedy cash grab

Bottom line is, the players enjoy bowls, the fans enjoy bowls, and companies are willing to sponsor bowls.

Why would you wish for less football?

You are making this way too complicated. ESPN doesn’t make money on fans in the seats. ESPN makes money on selling ads which are supported by TV viewing numbers. ESPN doesn’t have to make record setting ad revenue off of the bowls. They only have to make more money than the content that would replace all of this air time that would be available by eliminating the bowls. That’s a lot of dodge ball on the air without the bowls.

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Disney only cares about TV viewership and therefore ad rev. empty seats is only an optics problem

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This guy gets it.

Attendance is a blip on the radar.

Television ads which there are no shortage of is the big money. Until those start drastically reducing you’ll never see a drop in bowl games.

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move it to the first of the season - ala kickoff classics.
expand to include basically all P4 teams
let conferences/teams continue to work together to create fair matchups
use it as the Wk 0 game. count it. teams schedule 2 more games + conference schedule.

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My only gripe with this is that it robs the fans of having quality OOC games on campus and of having opportunities for bucket list road trips to experience some of the historically great college football traditions around the country.

And if you're trying to do it as Week 0 games for all P4 teams, then you'd need 35 neutral site stadiums that have availability on that same weekend...which may be difficult with NFL preseason going on at the same time. And the TV networks may not want to go for that idea because the viewer eyeballs would be split up among so many marquee games all going on at the same time. TV networks would rather split those games up across a couple of different weeks to maximize ratings.

That’s not the point

OP says you can take out to of the largest attendances to make the average even lower while we keep in two attendance totals under 8k