[NU Sports] Sugar Bowl ...

[John Labbe]

Regardless of whether we're Notre Dame "fans" or not, those of us who can understand why the Irish are favorites for the bowls aren't saying that Notre Dame would ALWAYS be picked above ANY other team.  If you told a bowl that it could choose one of Notre Dame, USC, and Penn State, I don't think it's at all clear that the bowl would pick Notre Dame.  Any of these three teams would ensure good ratings etc.

But if pretend you were the guy picking teams for the Sugar Bowl, and you take a look at the BCS-eligible teams this year, which team would you have picked instead of Notre Dame?  That's the question.  I think you would have picked Notre Dame.

Now, having said that, I would suggest one change to the BCS eligibility criteria.  I don't think there should be a two-team limit for each conference.  I'm OK with a limit of two guaranteed slots (e.g., OSU in championship game and Michigan ranked high enough that it got a guaranteed BCS birth, but no more guaranteed slots for one conference).  But I don't think there should be a total limit per conference to exclude possible at-large teams.

If you do away with that 2-team limit, now the Sugar Bowl could have chosen Wisconsin or Auburn instead of Notre Dame.  They probably wouldn't have chosen Auburn vs. LSU, but Wisconsin would have been a very attractive choice (yes, despite the fact that they played 1 good team and 11 hacks ;) ).


P.S. In case you thought I just called NU's football team a hack, it was just a joke, and in any event, you would be mistaken because I was referring to NU as the "1 good team" on Wisconsin's schedule.




On Thursday, January 04, 2007, at 12:34PM, <cherron604 at aol.com> wrote:
>We all seem to operate (fans and the press) on the assumption that 'Notre Dame guarantees ratings and gate'.  We have certainly all heard it often enough (they have their own network, after all).  But hard, fast numbers are hard to find.  I did find this interesting story from the Wall Street Journal (via the Austin American-Statesman):
> 
>http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/longhorns/01/4bowlratings.html 
> 
>It is intriguing that the South Bend school does no better than 7th, helping a game's average ratings by only about 3%.  This is a nice number, but I would guess almost certainly less than the school would have done 20 years ago.
> 
>And the gate argument might be losing a little steam also - the Sugar Bowl would certainly have sold as many tickets (due to LSU's presence) even if a different, quality opponent had been provided to the Tigers.
> 
>I have not seen research on which schools' 'travelling fans' spread around the most dollars in the host cities, and I would tend to doubt the rosy numbers most cities put out ('adding this will pump $500 million into the local economy'), but that would be interesting also.
> 
>Chuck Herron   Tech '85 
> 
> 
>-----Original Message-----
>From: tbng at comcast.net
>To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
>Sent: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 6:56 AM
>Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Sugar Bowl ...
>
>
>Steve: 
>> Instead of Fox constantly hyping the Notre Dame 
>> "experience" and giving the Doh!mers a 30 minute 
>> commercial during the last half of the rout, it'd have 
>> been nice to see them raise the biggest question of 
>> the night. Isn't it time the BCS drops their preferential 
>> treatment of Notre Dame and makes the Irish earn their 
>> big to their (now-annual) bowl (loss) like every other 
>> team? 
> 
>Harry: 
>> Money talks. 
> 
>Steve and Harry are both right. However, why must the press continue to glut themselves at the Irish trough? The third estate is supposed to be unbiased. (Yeah! Right!) 
> 
>New York City professional sports and Notre Dame football have much in common. The Philadelphia Eagles have soared back from the dead to win their division; meanwhile the Giants have been digging their own grave. Yet all you heard hour after hour last week on ESPN and the NFL Network were stories about the Giants. GO EAGLES! 
> 
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