CAMERA PULLS BACK FROM ANDREW, WE'RE IN JOE'S OFFICE (DAY) ...
JOE
"Okay. Explain to me like I'm a two year old, because there's an element to this I can't get through my thick head."
It will soon be college bowl season. Over the past weekend, an organization called the BCS selected some teams to go to some bowl games. Back in the day, they had names like The Cotton Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, The Orange Bowl and The Bluebonnet Bowl (whatever happened to that?). They corresponded with some annual celebration or a parade of some sort. That was back before college football was the big business enterprise it is today. [Ironically, you can't pay the players] The games were played on New Year's Day, and there were maybe 8 of them. If I had the energy I could do the research, but you get the point.
Today, there are more than thirty of them, which is strange because there are 119 Division 1 college football teams, so it stands to reason that (a) you have to be pretty bad not to get a bowl game and (b) the games don't mean as much as they used to. "B" is true of just about everything, but we'll confine the discussion to college football for now.The bowl games have picked up big time sponsorship. They are now known as The FedEx Orange Bowl, Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Allstate Sugar Bowl and the championship game is called the Allstate BCS Championship Game. I'm not sure if it's a bowl game or what it is, but apparently it's the only one that matters, since college football doesn't have a playoff system. By the way, we're supposed to believe that the Rose Bowl people are above all this commercialism, since they call it The Rose Bowl (parenthetically) presented by Citi. It's OK, you can whore yourself out, too.
Don't forget The San Diego Co. Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, The R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, The Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl, The Pacific Life Holiday Bowl and The Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. Run out and pick up a Bell Helicopter and say, "The BCS sent me!" All those games take place before New Year's Day, so pace yourself.
I wonder what's in it for the likes of Tostitos, FedEx, the San Diego Credit Union and Pacific Life and moreso, what's in it for the fans of the teams (anybody remember them?) who are essentially playing for second through tenth place. Every bowl game but the championship game is meaningless and amounts to nothing more than a sponsored post-season game, since the Lords of college football have determined that either LSU or Ohio State will be the NCAA champion. If there was such a thing as a post-season exhibition game, most of these would qualify. Oh, and the championship game is on January 7th, for what? That's right, TV. Your New Year's Day is free.
Cincinnati and Southern Mississippi are playing on December 20th in the PapaJohns dot com Bowl. Set your TIVO and order a pizza.
It seems kind of dopey to me for sponsors to dole out huge sums of money and fans to dole out ticket and vacation money to go to games that are essentially worthless in the grand scheme. If Wisconsin beats Tennessee in the Outback Bowl (oddly enough on New Year's Day) who cares? They're playing for 24th place, and God forbid some kid gets injured or winds up getting carted off the field so that the Outback Steakhouse can sponsor a meaningless game. For my money, Outback Steakhouse would garner more goodwill by running a $5 coupon in the Sunday newspaper instead of wasting money on this nonsense. Outside of Wisconsin and Tennessee, I can't see who really cares what happens ...
... oh, well ESPN cares, and that's all that matters, right?
7 comments:
do you even know how much i had to hear about this from last friday through the weekend and then all day today? omfg. i can't even tell you.
unfortunately, my team is one of the sad few that won't be playing in a bowl game. UA lost to ASU Saturday night. oh, the humanity! the ball was literally bouncing off of our players.
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I have always been a supporter of a playoff system but there's not enough money to satisfy all the pigs at the trough with that idea.
All this sponser crap is getting out of control. Soon the moon will have a massive "Starbucks" sign on it.
crescenet: I couldn't have said it better! Thanks for reading.
james: Every so often, some company floats the idea of putting a big "visible from space" sign on our moon. I always wonder if they're serious or just doing it for the pub.
i think of the bowl games this way.
For the BCS teams its great.
For Florida Atlantic, Indiana, Ball State, its great since its been years or in FAUs case, never since they went to a bowl game.
The rest is schlock, schlock I will probably watch alot of but schlock none the less.
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