http://deadspin.com/indiana-lost-money-p...socialflow

Thankfully (for IU) the B1G bailed them out and had done so before...

Dear steve,
Thanks for the article, and I totally agree with the author. There are too many bowl games. Remember when the MAC had just one? It was the California Bowl. Most conferences had just one bowl game also. This reminds me of teams giving participation trophies to the kids on the team because they didn't make it to the playoff or championship.

(06-15-2017 02:33 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear steve,
Thanks for the article, and I totally agree with the author. There are too many bowl games. Remember when the MAC had just one? It was the California Bowl. Most conferences had just one bowl game also. This reminds me of teams giving participation trophies to the kids on the team because they didn't make it to the playoff or championship.

Ken,

Yes the article makes a lot of points, but one is the pathetic showing by Indiana U.

Last time I checked, Utah is a very good Pac-12 school and a B1G/Pac-12 game should be a good draw.

This is not a game between two 6 - 6 G5 schools.

I am all for raising the minimum record to 7-5 for a bowl game with 6-6 as an emergency backup.

Indiana sold 3,500 tickets the year before and couldn't sell 1,000 this year. Fans burnout of every year bowl games.

When its something special they can supply 10-20k. Ask WMU and its Cotton Bowl travelers.

You can't raise the minimum record. There aren't enough teams to fill the current bowls. You need to eliminate 5 or more, at least. There's no value in the majority of the bowls except as tv fodder. People will watch any two teams even in relatively empty stadiums because the broadcast doesn't focus on the crowd or atmosphere. There are so many mediocre teams in bowls that bowls are no longer a measure of having a good season as they are that you just didn't have an awful season. Every conference now sends crappy teams to bowls, even the G5.

I can't fault fans for deciding to just watch a game on TV instead of dropping $1k+ and burning vacation time flying a crossed country to attend an irrelevant bowl game. For some of these smaller bowls it would be wise to move the bowls closer to the teams qualifying for them. Maybe the MAC could strike a deal with C-USA where a bowl would rotate between Detroit (or Indy) and Nashville (or wherever) every other year.

Miss the days of the Las Vegas bowl and motor city bowl. Good bowls, big time atmosphere. The kami beach bowl was on a weekday during work hours, it was brutal obviously as cmu was destroyed but attendance blew and looked horrible on tv

(06-16-2017 08:36 PM)cmufanatic Wrote:  Miss the days of the Las Vegas bowl and motor city bowl. Good bowls, big time atmosphere. The kami beach bowl was on a weekday during work hours, it was brutal obviously as cmu was destroyed but attendance blew and looked horrible on tv

Yes, the Lions' organization did the MAC no favors by taking away the Motor City Bowl.

Maybe if there is contraction in bowls, maybe the ACC will let the Detroit game go and the MAC can pick it up.

It's pretty sad when IU, a large flagship that plays in the Big Ten, gets only a thousand fans to Santa Clara in the Christmas-New Year's gap when Miami, a MAC school with a depleted fan base, draws at least a few thousand to St. Pete the day after Christmas.

In my college football utopia I'd drop two bowls (I'm thinking Arizona and Cure) so the five-win teams no longer get in while basically everyone with six still does, then you'd move some minor games from redundant or pointless locations to the midwestern domes (how about Boise, Camellia, and Miami Beach/Frisco to Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and St. Louis). From there each conference would lock two to four tie-ins (say Mobile and Detroit for the MAC) but the rest of the assignments are done on an ad hoc basis, except all seven win teams are guaranteed a spot. This promotes geographically sane matchups, adds some variety to each conference's lineup, and creates some excitement around early December for bowl announcements instead of just knowing that you'll go to one of a few cities just because you finished at a certain place in the standings. Will never happen though.

Indiana University I believe has the largest alumni base in the country at around 500,000....three times the size of the average MAC school.

I think its evidence the bowl eligibility rule should be raised to 7-5. A glut of games in the marketplace and programs that annually win about 6 or 7 games wear out their alumni after a few years of it.

When its special its different.

Last season, there were 60 teams who were 7-5 or better in the regular season and 20 teams who did not have winning seasons prior to their bowls. So what you are suggesting is that 10 bowls be eliminated. Probably a good idea for college football.

I highly doubt IU has the largest alumni base.

I'd think OSU or UT-Austin would be higher with substantially higher enrollment. Also much more involved alumni than IU.

(06-17-2017 05:41 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  Indiana University I believe has the largest alumni base in the country at around 500,000....three times the size of the average MAC school.

#fakenews

I'm sure, OSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Texas, Texas A&M, Penn State, UCLA and others have something to say about this.