Bernstein: Bowl Games Are Now For Losers, Too
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) The college football version of Christmas creep has been the metastatic growth of the postseason bowl schedule, now encompassing a record total of 40 games.
That's 80 teams needed to provide the free labor for these advertising boondoggles, ostensibly promising traveling hordes that shower the destination with cash for tickets and trinkets, excited to culminate a successful season with the justly deserved reward of some kind of arbitrary minor championship.
It's a problem, though, when the slate of such opportunities outstrips the number of winning teams or merely those with even records.
That's what's happening right now, with the NCAA facing the embarrassing spectacle of scrambling to enact last-minute relaxations of eligibility rules to allow losing teams to compete for some phony-baloney titles. At least two bowl bids — possibly as many as five — will be given to teams only managing to go 5-7 this year.
Old requirements were at least six victories and a .500 mark to qualify, but that had to change.
So now schools like Illinois, San Jose State, Nebraska and Kansas State have to decide if it's worth it to accept such an opportunity, balancing expense and inconvenience with any value, either perceived or actual.
One of the hidden truths of bowl games for years has been the net cost of participation, particularly for teams in smaller conferences that lack the large-scale financial guarantees afforded by television deals. More often than not, it's a break-even proposition at best and a complete bath at worst, the meager payout far from enough to cover the outlay for mandatory ticket purchases and travel. By the time every dance team member, assistant massage therapist and trombone player is housed and fed for the trip, the school is in the red, with nothing to show for it beyond the chance to put "Cauliflower Bowl champions" on recruiting literature.
And while it's an annual tradition for some teams to lose their coach before the last big game because he's been lured to greener pastures after rousing success, it's awkward when he's fired before a postseason game for intolerable under-performance. We'll undoubtedly see that soon if this pattern continues, with some just-promoted assistant rallying players with the likes of, "You got Coach canned, guys, now go out there and get us to 6-7!"
The silliest aspect of this year's farce is that the NCAA has decided to use academic performance to determine the order of which losing teams get first dibs. After failing enough at the win-at-all-costs game of maintaining eligibility, NOW grades matter for them. The "student-athlete" model is invoked by this doddering governing body only when the "athlete-athlete" model came up short — which is just perfectly ironic for the increasingly irrelevant plutocrats still running the scam of major college sports.
To get this straight, the supposed reward for being bad enough at football but good enough in the classroom is an opportunity for a school to spend more money to keep the players doing something other than schoolwork even longer. Congratulations on all that brainpower, guys, now spend more weeks in practice and another game smashing your skulls into glop for the benefit of our fine sponsors. You won't be paid a dollar for any of the effort, of course, but here's a goody bag with a commemorative water bottle, iPhone case and T-shirt.
If it wasn't broken before, it sure is now. At some point, those paying to put their names on these useless games will find better value for their marketing dollars than promoting matchups of also-rans, particularly if disappointed fans lose the motivation to attend, finally tired of being taken for granted.
The NCAA is on it, however, noting in an official release that, "The Football Oversight Committee is planning to form a task force in January to study bowl eligibility in the future," as if the issue is complicated.
Quality has always mattered less than quantity, and that will be the case as long as bad teams can be considered good business.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.