[NU Sports] B-C-MESS!!! B-C-MESS!!!

[Eric West]

People have been making predictions like this for years and years, and 
they have never come true. I remember being told in the 1990s that 18 
bowls were "too many" and that the number would go down soon for 
economic reasons, etc., etc. Guess what? Now there are almost twice as many.

Obviously there is a ceiling (and we must be getting close to it, since 
many bowls are forced to choose MAC or Sun Belt teams as at-large 
selections because those are the only eligible teams left), and the 
current economy may have an impact, but even that crisis is only "for 
now." Plenty of bowls have died over the years only to be replaced by 
two or three others. Other bowls lose the sponsorship of one corporation 
only to gain the sponsorship of another one. (Oh, and Citicorp and GM 
are primarily taking "heat" for things completely unrelated to their 
sponsorship choices, but that's a topic equally unrelated to this list...)

Getting back to the context of this discussion, if a minor bowl is 
financially viable, it will be viable no matter what the top 4 or 8 or 
16 teams in the country are doing elsewhere. There's simply nothing in 
reality to suggest that a playoff would kill the minor bowls.


Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu


johnadeg at comcast.net wrote:
> The so-called minor bowls are likely to die off as corporations cut back on their  spending.  Look at the heat that CitiCorp and GM are taking for their sports sponsorship.  Companies don't like unfavorable publicity so others will drop their sponsorships of sporting events rather than be criticized for spending on sports events..
>
> John DeGroat
>