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Of all the sporting events and institutions that dot the American landscape, none face as many challenges to their very existence as do the bowl games. From media who are unable to write about anything but their desire for a playoff, to fans who often fail to see what is at stake in all but the national championship game, the bowl game is under constant assault. I made my first visit to a live bowl game this past January 1, as Big Ten Country was on hand to cover the Wisconsin-Arkansas matchup in the Capital One Bowl. I left as someone who is essentially supportive of the bowl system and I returned even more strongly so.
The weekend started on New Year’s Eve, as my flight arrived in Orlando and I went to the media hotel. The fans of the rival schools were milling about the lobby. I took a brief walk and noticed a nearby bar seemed to be a gathering place for Wisconsin fans, as they filled the outside area watching the telecast of the school’s basketball game with Georgia that afternoon. That night we ushered in the New Year at Universal Studios. More fans could be seen taking in the entertainment offered, though an early pattern of Wisconsin fans outnumbering the Arkansas counterparts was developing. Dinner that evening was a case in point. We ate in a restaurant/bar that was showing the Packers-Bears game, and the place was filled with tourists from Packerland to watch what may have been Brett Favre’s final game. When the clock struck midnight and 2007 arrived, we were listening to a live Cyndi Lauper concert. In case you were wondering, yes, she is just as cheesy as she was when I had a crush on her as a teenager in the mid-1980s.
It’s been written about by others many times already, but when you see it firsthand you realize just how much money is poured into the local economy by these games. I saw it again one week later when I was in Arizona for the BCS National Championship Game. For the title game, I watched in a Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale—a good thirty miles or so from the stadium—and even that far away from the stadium on game night, every bar in the area had traveling fans coming in to watch. The economic impact might not be a reason for the average fan or sportswriter to change his mind, but it does constitute a powerful political reality. Any change to the format is going to have make sure the dollars keep flowing into local coffers, and as I would find out on game day, that’s not going to be as easy as it may sound.
My companion in the press box was Chaney Floyd, the man who runs the press box at Arkansas’ War Memorial Stadium. I mentioned to him what seemed to me the relative scarcity of Razorback fans—at least in comparison to the Badger backers. Mr. Floyd, a man who has devoted his life to athletics in Arkansas gave me some background on what his home state brethren faced in attending this game.
Arkansas folks had to start their trip by getting themselves to Dallas. Then the way flights were scheduled, they had to fly in to Tampa. From there they had to get themselves to Orlando. The price tag? One thousand dollars. And they haven’t eaten a meal or found a place to stay yet. This already prohibitive pricing becomes even steeper when you consider that Hog fans had traveled once already this season. Arkansas won its division in the SEC and played in the league’s conference championship game against Florida on the first Saturday of December. Given that this game is a big deal in SEC country, Hog rooters were more apt to go to Atlanta and forgo a bowl trip.
The issues raised by this are numerous. It shows that the money generated by conference championship games has come at a price—the relative attractiveness of member schools to bowl committees. Big Ten teams have a well-earned reputation for traveling well. That has earned the conference good bowl slots up and down the ladder and gives a distinct advantage to its runner-up in the fight for at-large BCS bids. As the regular season wound down and I did my bowl projections each week, I assumed that the loser of a conference championship game would have a serious black mark against it when it came to securing a major bowl bid. Seeing the problems faced by Arkansas fans didn’t exactly persuade me to change my mind. And when I was in Arizona, there was no doubt that Ohio State fans vastly outstripped Florida people. We know SEC people love their football as much as we do, so this has to be a question of their fans’ budgets just being stretched too thin.
Problems or not, conference championship games aren’t going anywhere, so playoff proponents have to take them into account as well. Consider that the problems discussed so far have only involved fans making trips to only two games that are spaced a month apart. In a playoff system you’re talking three (or four depending on what proposal you’re listening too) trips that are only spaced a week apart. You can now further reduce the number of fans able to travel with their teams and that means sterile playing environments dominated by indifferent locals. Or more likely, it means a lot of empty seats, at least at early-round games. Have you ever been to the 1st/2nd round games of the NCAA basketball tournament? If so, you know what I’m talking about. Those games are played in front of half-filled crowds and some of the great upsets have been the best kept secret in town. And that’s with eight schools to fill the seats rather then two.
The game itself was a taut battle, and Wisconsin held off Arkansas for a 17-14 win. Down on the field at the end of the game, another myth that is thrown at the bowl games came undone. The notion that no one really cares if it’s not for a national championship. You could not be on that field and see the celebration of the UW players or the emotion of rookie coach Bret Bielama and think that they saw it as nothing more then a glorified scrimmage. You couldn’t sit in the press conference and see the disappointment on the face of Arkansas coach Houston Nutt and not realize how much each team wanted the win. The teams were playing for the right to be legitimately considered as a just a notch below national championship level. It was at least as prestigious as a first-round or second-round NFL playoff game when you know neither team has a realistic chance to win the Super Bowl.
New Year’s was wrapped up back at the bar where Wisconsin fans congregated. To say “congregated” probably understates the case. It felt as though one were in Madison outside Camp Randall, albeit in a little warmer weather. The TV sets were spread out as we watched the Rose Bowl. Penn State’s win had joined with Wisconsin’s to get the day off to a good start. Wisconsin fans were dreaming of a Midwestern sweep. The possibility of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State all winning and vaulting UW to #3 in the final polls was discussed (this presumed an Oklahoma win over Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl). It would have been the first conference sweep of the top three poll spots since 1975. And the Wolverines, Irish and Buckeyes only missed pulling it off by a combined sixty-eight points. But Badger fans are easy to please if you put them in a drinking establishment. The place went crazy when the school’s “Jump-Around” was played, a song usually done right before the fourth quarter at home games, and it turned loose an unholy mix of middle-aged men and college students all jumping around the bar. The place was so thoroughly Wisconsin-ized that by night’s end a rendition of “The Bears Still Suck” was offered as musical fare.
It was an evening that captured the essence of the bowl experience. A great football game had been staged. Conference loyalty was evident (indeed, during the game, announcement of Penn State’s 20-10 triumph over Tennessee was greeted with loud cheers from the Wisconsin section). Money was spent in the local community. If you go to a bowl game, you get a nice vacation and some good football. There are a lot of good reasons not to mess with the existing structure, beyond minor tinkering. The city of Orlando and the Capital One Bowl put those reasons on display in spades.
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