New Bowl Games Coming To S. Florida & Bahamas
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – At the current pace, major college football may have bowl games for teams that simply show up each Saturday.
According to ESPN.com, the five smaller FBS conferences will start new bowls games in the Bahamas, Boca Raton, and Miami starting next year. The new bowls will feature teams from the American Athletic Conference (former Big East), Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
The new bowls were said to be needed because of the power conferences like the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and Big 12, took up most of the spots in the major bowl games under the new playoff system set to start in 2014.
The Miami Bowl will be created by the AAC and that conference will be the host and a second team will come from the other non-power leagues, according to ESPN. The bowl game will be played at Marlins Park, home of the Miami Marlins baseball team.
The Bahamas Bowl is expected to be officially announced on October 15 and all five of the conferences will rotate through the game. The game will be held at Thomas Robinson Stadium and will be the first bowl outside the U.S. since the International Bowl in Toronto in 2010.
Finally, ESPN reported a new Boca Raton Bowl will have teams from Conference USA, the MAC, and the American Athletic Conference and will be held at FAU Stadium.
Once the new games are added, there will be a total of 39 bowl games for the 125 Football Bowl Subdivision teams. That means that 78 teams from the 125 schools will be playing in bowl games startin in 2014.
