TOO MANY BOWL GAMES?

By: Stephen Lylyk, RP Show Intern

As the calendar flips to December, the anticipation for America’s College Football Bowl Season is in the air. 

These bowl games are built on decades of history. From the Rose bowl, to the Sugar Bowl, several legendary moments have occurred through the years.  

However there have been people debating just how many bowl games are necessary.   

Rod Pedersen summarized this debate during his Friday show.  

“I guess the point is that the games don’t mean that much,” Pedersen said, “because there’s so many of them.” 

Tom Joyce of the Washington Examiner had this to say about the bowl games with limited importance in a 2020 article.   

“The teams have a difficult time finding enough people to watch them play,” exclaimed Joyce. “After all there have been bowl games featuring teams with losing records over the years, and 6-6 teams playing in bowl games are common.”  

One of the trends in these games have been poor attendance. A recent example would be the 2021 Boca Raton Bowl between Western Kentucky, and Appalachian State.  

Western Kentucky featured Quarterback Bailey Zappe, who came into the game having set record in both passing yards and passing touchdowns in a season. However, there was only 15,429 fans that day, in a stadium that seats 29,571.  

“The Stadium wasn’t even half full!” cxclaimed Pedersen. “Beautiful Howard Schnellenberger Stadium was not even half full for the Boca Raton Bowl.”  

 While attendance at these games may be poor, Sports Illustrated reporter Barrett Sallee exclaimed in a 2016 article how the players benefit from the experience.  

“Players often receiver a trip to an exotic destination during bowl week,” exclaimed Sallee. “They get to have new and different experienced with their teammates, as well.”  

The schools are also benefitting from the added games to their schedule.   

As Pedersen explained, recalling a point he heard during a radio broadcast, “The host today on the Radio, he does the Miami Hurricanes pre and post game show. As he exclaimed ‘The Hurricanes play more games, they play in a bowl, I make more money.’”  

Richard Johnson best summarizes how people should handle these criticisms in a 2019 article for the blog ‘Banner Society.’  

“Your argument isn’t knew,” writes Johnson. “The System’s going to continue and expand anyways. Maybe try just sitting and enjoying the games with the rest of us.” 

(The Rod Pedersen Show airs daily on Game+ TV and WQEE Radio)