Are There Too Many Bowl Games... Or Not Enough?

As the holiday season continues rapidly approach the annual debate rages on with college football fans as to whether or not there are too many bowls. This debate is great for filling time on the sports radio airwaves as it takes very little effort if you are a host to open up the phone lines and let people sound off on this topic.

However, the reality is the bowls are for the teams, universities, the host communities and ESPN to fill air time during the holiday season. With Kentucky dominating the men’s college basketball world if you’re ESPN you might as well put as many bowl games on their airwaves as they can get away with during the holidays.

From my own personal experience as a student football manager at the University of Washington I was fortunate to go on four bowl trips the 1997 Aloha Bowl, 1998 Oahu Bowl, 1999 Holiday Bowl, and the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day in 2001. I had never been to Hawaii before those two bowl trips and the experience of going to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial during the first trip to the Aloha Bowl was something I would never forget. The Rose Bowl experience was an opportunity to live out a dream I had since I was a little kid of being on the field in some capacity as part of a team for that game.

Thus, whether it’s the reaction of the Central Michigan players to getting to go to the Bahamas for the Popeye’s Bahamas Bowl or South Alabama selling over 1,700 tickets during the first day of bowl ticket sales to the Camellia Bowl. There are not too many bowls there are too many people in the world with nothing better to do with their life but complain about too many bowls in college football. Instead, look at these bowl games as an opportunity to escape from to-do-lists from your wives if they get on your nerves by going to your man cave and watch football.

Another way to liven up the bowl season get involved in a College Football Bowl Survivor type of contest and try to win money for yourself to pay holiday bills. That is always a great way to enhance the bowl experience on television is by winning money.

Bottom line, the system is not changing as far as the amount of Bowls are concerned and the great thing as college fans we have a choice as to whether or not we watch or buy tickets to these bowl games. College fans are in full control as to whether they attend a bowl game in person or watch it on television and that is one thing that fans should embrace the choice that they have as to watching these bowl games or not.