Create-A-Bowl

Yeah, I know, I know. The BCS is done for the year so I should stop complaining. Confessions of a Sportscaster is starting to turn into an anti-BCS sounding board more and more every day.

I know that currently the BCS has a cap of 35 bowl games by virtue of a temporary moratorium, meaning as of right now, 70 of the 120 teams will play a postseason game. But why not one more to share the wealth (i.e. line some pockets)?

I've mentioned Death to the BCS on this blog before, even recommended it personally to a few people. One of the people who's picked up the book is my old friend Geoff Clark, he of the Grabbing the Bull Horns blog that is covering Da Bulls fairly in depth. He texted me this morning about his experience in reading it. We occasionally have awesome brainstorming sessions, and this turned into another one. Everything in parentheses that follows is thoughts I had at the time we were discussing this or notes about things related to what he or I say.

Geoffy: "Reading that book now. Can't believe they act like bowls profit everybody."
Me: "They want to keep up the idea so they can get richer. Told you it was eye-opening."
G: "If this is what happens to D-1 schools, I can even imagine what [North Central College athletic director] Jim Miller would be going through if it happened here."
Me: "We'd be out of competitive sports. Hell, we'd probably have been out after a few years."

Then Geoffy gets totally brilliant.



G: "I have an idea. Let's quit our jobs and form our own bowl game. We'll be set for the rest of our 20s."

Me: "So all we need is a little seed money to start and then we can pay it back after a year or two. Free money!" (You see why everyone loves Geoffy? He has a stream of consciousness like no other.)

G: "There's gotta be some 6-6 teams desperate enough to fly out to Naperville to play a game."

Me: "No, we need to think bigger. Bigger stadium, sell more tickets at full price to the schools, make more cash." (This actually happens in real bowl games. You see all those half-full stadiums for the Little Caesar's Bowl, etc.? That's why.)

G: "Right. I thought that was too easy. Can't be Wrigley after that end zone fiasco."

Me: "You'd have to deal with Chicago winter anyway." (I think about it, realize there is a bowl game in Boise, where the winter will still be fairly bad, realize it could work here.) "Put it in Soldier Field, but make the park district redo the field. There's your venue." (I hear Bears players and fans complain about the turf all the time. I know it's terrible. That's probably the biggest problem other than money.)

G: "It's possible. They've never hosted a regular college bowl game unless you count the Chicago College All-Star Game from way back when."

Me: (Never actually heard of it, but it supports the argument for a bowl in Chicago.) "And that was way back. A nice stadium with a redone field? Room for 61,500. Don't even need to fill the place since we sell like 10-15 [thousand tickets] to each school. Half-empty stadium be damned, we make a ton of money."

G: "It's perfect. It's brilliant and I don't know why others in the country don't see the possibilities here."

Me: "No one has the business savvy." (Especially not me, though I know enough about the system to feign knowledge.) "The other thing we'd need is a corporate sponsor or two."

G: "The BMO Harris Bank Bowl?"

Me: "I like it. They can get some money down the line for their trouble, everyone wins." (Well, as I've argued the school's don't, but from a pure business standpoint, this is a gold mine.)

G: (Realizing my last point) "Well, everyone except the schools, but that's not our problem." (He's just hit the nail on the head.)

Me: "They'll convince themselves it's good to play in a bowl, and they'll recoup the losses from the revenue sharing taken from teams in conference that made the bigger bowls. That's what's so devious about the system."

G: "How can the system be seen as so devious and yet so brilliant?"

Me: "It's devious because it robs people, but it's such a clever way of doing it and the people being robbed just keep playing along."
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It's true. Bowl executives and conference commissioners can keep getting away with this because the athletic directors let them. The sad part is no one even realizes this. Geoffy quotes from Death to the BCS:

"In the United States, home of the 'Get-Rich-Quick' scheme, running a bowl may be the cushiest gig of all." (p. 48)

As a summary, you offer large payouts to the participating schools, but what really happens is that you get a lot of money from selling face-value tickets to these schools, and once you've booked the venue and gotten your corporate sponsor? You're set to just count the money. As it is written:

"Of course, running a bowl isn't simple. It is, in many cases, very simple." (Death to the BCS, p. 64)

So are you sick of your job? Come join our bowl game. You will get to join a non-profit organization (seriously, most bowls have 501(c)3 status) and get paid a good salary and get great benefits. And best of all? You really only have to work to get one game a year off the ground.

As Geoffy aptly put it, "Where do I sign up?"