The NCAA reports that TV ratings for bowl games — even the pre-Christmas bowls — were higher than ever this year.
“With more than 1.7 million combined fans attending a bowl game and close to another combined 129 million households tuning in to watch the bowl games on television, bowl payouts ran an estimated $225 million in 2007-08 and have totaled $1.6 billion over the last nine seasons. Over the next ten years, bowls are projected to pay $2.4 billion to the teams and conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision who participate.” An estimated $1.3 billion poured into the community coffers from travel and tourism to the 32 bowl games.
This year, Joe Paterno won his NCAA record 23rd bowl game in his 500th game on the sidelines … Boston College won their eighth straight bowl to continue the longest bowl-winning streak in the nation … the SEC’s seven bowl wins (7-2 overall) was an all-time high for any conference in NCAA history….LSU recorded its largest weekly sale of licensed football merchandise in history.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
There is so much NCAA spin-doctoring and hiding the ball in this post, where to begin . . .
1. Those ratings appear to be cumulative numbers. Might that have something to do with there being more bowl games than ever before?
2. I’d like to see the Nielsen ratings(share and percentages, not eyeballs) and ticket sales for the big 6 games (Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Capitol One/Citrus) compared to years past as I’m pretty sure they all had absymmal ratings and sales due to horrible, BCS/Conference-forced matchups.
3. The LSU, SEC, BC, and Paterno stats are very misleading. First, OF COURSE LSU had their largest merchandise sales. They won their first outright national championship since 1958, and only their second ever (third if you count split).
4. Again, the SEC went 7-2, but that’s because there are 32 bowl games! If there were only 20, would 9 SEC teams get bids? For a LONG time, Notre Dame didn’t even go to Bowl games and Big Ten teams were only allowed to go to the Rose.
5. The BC winning streak is as fraudulent as the Notre Dame losing streak. As the most popular team, ND always get slotted into bowls where they are outclassed and overmatched by superior opponents: hence no wins since 1994. BC has won 8 in a row by playing teams WELL below their ability and stauture because their fan base doesn’t travel and go to bowl games (minus Bob and maybe Doug Flutie). They needed an overtinme kick last season to beat unranked Navy. A string of victories in the Humanitarian Bowl and Continental Tire Bowl don’t really impress me. Until this streak incudes a New Year’s Day or BCS game, it is a worthless indicator of perpetual mediocrity.
6. Joe Pa won his 23rd bowl because (as an independent) PSU, until 1990, was free to go to a bowl every single year and choose which one they wanted to play in. Oh yeah, he has also coached at PSU for 50 years!
The only thing I partially agree with is the title of teh post. Unfortunately, teh Bowls (at least the Rose Bowl) and the Big Ten and Pac-10 will never allow a playoff. One can only hope for a sensible plus-1.