Bowl Crazy, Cash Smart

Summary: If you can track them all, take a look at the line-up of college football teams that make it to bowl games in what has, over time, grown to become a blur of bowls, and it' hard not to wonder if a qualifying criteria exists.

If you can track them all, take a look at the line-up of college football teams that make it to bowl games in what has, over time, grown to become a blur of bowls, and it' hard not to wonder if a qualifying criteria exists. There is, but with 27 or by some counts 28 bowl games on the schedule, organizers have to dip deep into pool to come up with enough teams to fill the spots. The set minimum standard of a .500 season and six wins to get an invitation has set the bar rather low. They can't all be classic match-ups. With 117 Division Ia teams taking 54 Bowl spots there's no way. But hey, with more than $190 million to be divided up among participants and an average Bowl game attendance of 51,879 does it really matter? It adds up to a pretty good shot in the arm for a lot of athletic programs. If there is a flaw it's the rich get richer and harder to catch. Roughly $139 million of that $190 pay-out goes to the eight big Bowl participants. That's lots of action packaged up over 16 days of the holiday season. Stick television in that package too. Network broadcast hours will top the hundred mark. Consider too that these games are more than a few hours of parking one's butt at the stadium come game time. They are the impetus for organization of week long festivals of spending in host cities. Just as the pay-out for all Bowl games cannot be equal, the economic impact of tourism and spending on a host region can not all be like the Rose Bowl. The $$$ that festival generates is the grandmother of them all and the model to shoot for. It's hard to be picky about a name when corporations are lining up to throw sponsorship money at organizers to the tune of $30 million like FritoLay put into the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. It's serious money. Serious enough, fans who mightn't be impressed with the rhyme have to agree with the reason.