Despite an economic climate that’s a bears a haunting and striking resemblance to the 1930s, people are opening their wallets to travel to the bowl bliss of college football.
Yes, it seems like there are way too many bowl games, yes many of them have ridiculous sounding and horribly corporate names, but people are still coming. And after all, who really wants less football? Who would want less football to choose from?
Entering Thursday, the Texas Bowl, won 38-14 by the Illinois Fighting Illini had the highest attendance of the season at 68,112.
By Paul M. Banks
Attendance at completed bowl games is up over four percent this year compared to the same games last year, the Football Bowl Association announced today. With fourteen bowl games completed and twenty-one to go, attendance is up 4.1 percent.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we need more bowl games in cold climates. Although Syracuse and Kansas State put on a good show in Yankee Stadium yesterday, it’s ridiculous to play a bowl game next to a gigantic pile of snow. Didn’t that look ridiculous?
You can’t have a bowl game in a place that incapacitated by snow just a couple days ago. Bowl games need to exclusively held in a land where palm trees sway; the Big Ten endures the road game situations in order for snowbirds like myself to escape the weather for a few days.
And tv ratings must be doing well, because they keep selling ad space for these games. They wouldn’t be adding more bowl games unless they made money, and they wouldn’t be making money unless they sold the ad space, so it shows people are watching; despite the presence of 6-6 and 7-5 teams in bowl games.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, the Tribune’s blog network, Walter Football, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank
He also does a regular weekly segment on chicagolandsportsradio.com