Bowl Games Taking a Beating

[JunkyardDog47]

The 2011-2012 College Bowl Season was you basic disaster, continuing a trend that started in 2006-07. The BCS Bowl games have taken a major hit, with the orange Bowl faring the worse, having a 9.5% decrease in attendance since 2005. The Sugar Bowl has had a 4.3% decrease, while the Fiesta has suffered a 3.&% decrease. Only the Rose Bowl has managed to keep up, with little or no change since 2005. Other Bowls also suffer. The Outback Bowl once again failed to draw 50,000 fans, the 2nd time in 3 years. The official attendance was announced as 49,429, but only 40,002 fans bothered to show up. That is a very poor attendance for the losers of the Big 10 and SEC Championship games to draw.

Television has also taken a major hit. This season saw a 15% drop in T.V. ratings over last season. The BCS Championship game saw a 14% drop, and had the worst rating of any BCS Championship game.

The reasons for this are rather obvious. First, the matchups have been basically terible, except for the Rose Bowl, which has managed to maintain it's Big 10-Pac 12 match up most of the time. This year's Alabama-LSU match up in the BCS Championship game is proof of that. The Orange Bowl continually gets stuck with The Big East and ACC Champions.

Look for major changes starting in 2014. Some type of playoff system is bound to appear. Fewer Bowl games may also be in the future. Teams may have to have a winning record. Wins against FCS teams may not count when getting to thegical 6 win number. Something has to be done to help the Bowls and the NCAA knows this.

[tinwork]

Too many bowls - need a playoff.

[AllIDOisWINwinWIN]

Too many, play off not needed...

[Muleriders]

There are 120 teams in bigtime football. When 70 of them go to a bowl game....doesn't say much for some of the bowls.

I believe in the near future we will see some kind of a playoff system. I think its pretty sad when some of these teams go to bowls and lose bigtime money.