"Bowling for Dollars"

Well it’s college football Bowl season. That time of year when a few excellent NCAA football teams are rewarded with a trip, schmoozed, given gifts, treated to dinner, exposed to future business “gonnections”, (Gatsby) and allowed a lot of freedom to carouse around and be young men. In recent years so many new Bowl games have popped up that even mediocre college football teams get to “go bowling”. A full line up of 35 Bowl games provide spaces for 70 college teams to go “bowling” out of a possible 120 Division I schools. There are scads of 6-6 teams in bowl games and one team (Georgia Tech) will play in a Dec. 31^st game with a 6-7 record. If you can get a won-loss record of 7-5 you will play somewhere. Angling for a specific bowl bid requires colleges to rev up the glad-handing, dinner buying, and promise making efforts towards “Bowl officials”. Essentially, like in politics, it’s who you know, who you buy off that secures your best “product” placement.

While it’s true that a team does have to have at least 5 wins against Division I schools and an aggregate total of 6 wins; you are allowed to pulverize at least one sub Division I school. That lopsided win counts toward your win total. All the schools do it. I mean how else you can explain a powerhouse like Michigan playing a football underling like South Dakota Bible College? Wins baby, and the more wins you have the better bowl game you can go to unless you are Boise State in which case you’ll be playing in Boise or Las Vegas (minor Bowls) no matter whom you beat. What do I mean by a better Bowl game?

Well, in addition to treating the players, coaches, athletic department personnel, and school administrations like they were royalty landing on a shore, the teams get boatloads of cash for their program. Members of the conference that aren't going to a bowl game even get some of the money generated by the ones that are.  It’s a “gesture” towards those schools in the conference that routinely get battered senseless by the power houses. Schools like Indiana, Wake Forest, or Maryland take their lumps every year for conference recognition and a small sliver of the big payout. Of course the weaker schools can (themselves) schedule even weaker and smaller schools like Bethany College, Trinity U. and South East Texas State’s and then beat them senseless for a few wins too. The big schools like Florida, Georgia, and Michigan get richer and stronger and the weaker teams don’t.  If you go to the Rose Bowl your school might get 5 million dollars along with the players and coaches getting I Pads  ski jackets, and a trip to Jay Leno’s show. However, if you play in the lowly Belk Bowl in front of 17,000 your team might  get at most 250 K  and instead of an I PAD each player would probably get an 8 track player and 2 tickets to see The Oak Ridge Boys. It’s financial Darwinism at its best/worst.

So it’s a money making venture for all concerned: Players get things they would otherwise have to steal, coaches get free trips so they can make contacts for future employment and their wives get to go along and spend his coaching money shopping and being placated for the fact that their hubby is gone 80% of the year. If they love their husband it’s a poor trade off, but if they don’t it’s a win, win, win! The athletic department top dogs get free trips and cozy dinners with the big boys (bowl officials) and School Admin personnel get trips and goodies just because their paid employees are good at the play for pay structure. Even the ball boys get a trip, and a new air pump and tickets to a movie.

The City hosting the game gets free national publicity for their city. Cool if you are sponsoring the San Diego Holiday Bowl. San Diego sells itself. But what if you are Washington DC sponsoring the Military Bowl and no one gives a shit about the teams playing (as they didn't this year) and you are trying to sell DC in winter, with politicians just down the road. The corporations potentially win because they get to sponsor football on TV and that means a boatload of commercials for everything from car belts to tacos. Some of the bowl games are (in fact) exciting, but alas with so many games, most are snooze fests. Nothing like San Jose State taking on Bowling Green to replace sleep aids.

Some of these Bowl games have become absolutely goofy over the years as more and more companies rush in to sponsor a game. Bridge Point Education, Mein eke Car Care, Chick-fil-A, Idaho Potato’s, Beef O Brady, MAACO, Little Caesar’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback, and Go Daddy are just some of the companies that sponsor a bowl game. Bridge Point Education, huh?

My favorite (no longer a sponsor) was the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl. But I don’t think the sponsors and Bowl games today really connect with football fans. The Pinstripe Bowl in New York? I know it’s playing on the Yankee pinstripes but wouldn’t the Empire Bowl or Big Apple Bowl be more apropos? The Sun Bowl was played in a drizzle. The Poinsettia Bowl doesn’t even connect with the city it’s played in, San Diego. Is San Diego the only place that grows Poinsettias and what if it was?

Well, do not despair I have come up with 6 new bowl games that would connect better with college football fans. And these games would be so much more interesting to watch. These would be fun games that match the times, the city, or the teams involved.

Here then (in my own humorous way) are the 6 Bowl games I think could be added:

1.       The Land o Lakes Lard Bowl

** To be eligible you must have at least two players 400lbs+ and 15 players 300lbs or more. Most teams would be eligible.

Playing this year: Iowa vs. Iowa State (those corn fed boys on the plains can really pack it on)

Singing the National Anthem would be: Aretha Franklin

Alternate names could be: “The No Neck Bowl”, “The Tub o Goo Bowl”, or ‘The HBP Bowl”

2.       

The Probation Bowl

** To be eligible you have be on current probation by the NCAA for multiple wrongdoings

 Playing this year: Penn State vs. Ohio State

Singing the National Anthem would be: Lindsay Lohan

Alternate names could be: “Hand in the Cookie Jar Bowl”, “The Felony Bowl” or “The Gotcha Bowl” 

3.       

The Dumb Mascot Bowl

** To be eligible you have to have one of the most annoying college Mascots ever created

Playing this year: Notre Dame vs. Texas (a leprechaun and Bevo a long horn steer)

Singing the National Anthem would be: Psy

Alternate names could be: “The Progressive Flo Bowl”, “The Allstate Mayhem Bowl” or “The GEICO Gecko Bowl”

4.   

    “The Countdown to Meltdown Bowl”

** To be eligible you have to have an out of control, ready to implode at any moment head coach.

Playing this year: Nebraska vs. Syracuse (Pelini vs. Robinson)

Singing the National Anthem would be: Chris Brown

Alternate names could be: “The Mental Health Awareness Bowl”, “The Bushwhacker 223 Bowl” or “The Mel Gibson Jew Bowl”

5.   “The Mensa Bowl”

** To be eligible you have to have at least one Rhodes Scholar on the team and 10 certifiable Mensa Club eligible members. This of course eliminates most all football teams in America but….

Playing this year: Yale Vs. Harvard

Singing the National Anthem: Dr. Cornell West (my brouther!)

Alternate Names could be: “The Bobby Fischer Bowl”, “The Hawking Bowl”, or the “Dr. Phil Bow

AND Last but not least

6.     

  “The Elitist Bowl”

** To be eligible every team member and coaching staff must travel with J. Crew, Abercrombie, and/or Calvin Klein apparel+ TAG Heur watches.

Playing this year: Stanford vs. Duke

Singing the National Anthem: Celine Dion

Alternate Names could be: “The Polo Pony Bowl”, “The Lord Grantham Bowl”, or the “The Snot Nose Bowl”

I jest, I jest……just having fun.