Are the Football Bowl games worth the cost?

Grow up football is awesome.

I thought you were going to ask about going to the physical game vs. watching it on TV, in which case I would have replied sometimes.

Football is great, but at what expense?

How many athletic programs have cut programs in recent years, but have increased their football budgets to only lose more and more money each year. This is especially true for the Mid American Conference. Five MACs scores going to a bowl game...I bet less than 10,000 fans will be in the stands and each MAC school will lose at least $250,000 going to one of their bowls games…

At these MAC schools how much of a student’s tuition/fees go to the athletic program?

Exactly.

The argument to cut track is that it causes the athletic department to lose money.

But it is OK for football to lose even more money than track.

When looking at dollars, the cost/benefit decision to cut track doesn't make sense when compared to other costs that the colleges/athletic departments incur.

Track is simply not valued as much.

They should be honest and just say that.

The money argument doesn't really work.

We have the Capital One Bowl and that thing brings in big honkin' gobs of money for all the guys selling parking spaces in vacant lots and road-side BBQ.

$5!!!!!!! *WAVES SIGN* %5!!!!!!! *WAVES LIGHT* $5!!!!!!!

The whole system is stupid. Schools are required to buy large blocks of tickets. These tickets--most of which are in the end zones--are then resold for inflated prices. The smart fans buy tickets in the middle section for 1/2 the price. The school doesn't get any credit for these purchases, though. Why shouldn't bowls be responsible for selling their own tickets?

Because Americans are so sedentary, and never really do anything physical after high school, they love football - lots of breaks for tv and bathroom visits, lots of talking in huddles, lots of instances where one can debate decisionmaking and play calling, replay, replay replay.

Plus, it's a marketing machine, which America buys into easily as prisoners of the moment.

The Bowl system is so political.

11-1 Boise State is playing 6-6 Arizona State in the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl. ASU has lost last 5 games.

Shouldn't extremely successful Boise State be playing some team far better than ASU? Certainly a team ranked in the top 20......Oklahoma, for example.

Several years ago Boise was squeezed into playing another small FB school (Texas Christian) when they were ranked 3 & 4.

Who wouldn't have wanted to see them play Ohio State & Alabama respectively.

Boise State disrespected again.

larger wrote:

Because Americans are so sedentary, and never really do anything physical after high school, they love football -

You forgot to mention the fact that: it's awesome, it's highly entertaining and the players are tremendous athletes.

hater.

Desanti wrote:

larger wrote:

Because Americans are so sedentary, and never really do anything physical after high school, they love football -

You forgot to mention the fact that: it's awesome, it's highly entertaining and the players are tremendous athletes.

hater.

Not a hater, as I watch college and NFL games every weekend, and am a Fantasy football freak. Just calling it for what is is, and why it is so popular. I am not blinded by its rhetoric, which apparently you may be.

It is just perfectly situated for Americans. I forgot about the stats, which also has helped it eclipse baseball, another sedentary sport, with the advent of Fantasy Football.

As far as the bowls, they are just alumni gatherings, and always have been. Mini-vacations in the middle of winter.

more info

The ticket policy of major bowls puts teams in a tough situation, even those with long histories. Ohio State lost $1 million for the 2009 Fiesta Bowl, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Virginia Tech lost $1.77 million when it went to the 2009 Orange Bowl, according to the Virginian Pilot of Norfolk.

The University of Connecticut. When the Big East Conference champion played in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl, it received a $2.5 million conference expense allowance. But the team couldn't resell 14,729 of the 17,500 tickets the Fiesta Bowl required it to purchase.

The Huskies' bowl expenses quickly piled up: $2.9 million from unsold tickets, $1.1 million for travel and housing, and $210,000 in assorted other costs. The final tally was a net loss of approximately $1.7 million.

Plus, the teams have to stay in certain hotels for X amount of days when they go to a bowl game..

Not to me!

How many Olympic sports have been dropped in the last 10 years so some AD can put more money into a football program which keeps losing more and more money each year!

With less than three weeks left before the Gator Bowl, Ohio State has sold only about half of its ticket allotment.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2011/12/13/Half-of-Gator-Bowl-tickets-still-up-for-grabs.html

All of the bowls outside of the BCS championship game are meaningless exhibition games. A legitimate NCAA playoff needs to be instituted fast.