Bowl Attendance

[smudad]

In my opinion, the BCS has succeded in completely screwing up the bowl scene. They have some help from the folks who think they can tee it up, call it a bowl and have folks just show up. But some of these matches were made in an area other than heaven. In fact the lesser bowls have produced some of the better 'contests'. They're just not playing for anything. The Rose Bowl is reporting attendance of 86,848. Capacity is 94,000.

It's difficult to believe the logistics of a 16 or 32 team playoff system would be any worse than the 275 bowl games now being played. And everyone gets to play for the National Championship every week they survive. One problem is the NCAA. One would hope they would turn such a venture over to an organization like the Mafia. It would have to be run better, have better competition and be potentially more honest.

[braginator]

Oh and don't forget about the great WAC showing at the Silicon Valley Classic which is held at Spartan Stadium. This bowl faded as quick as the dot-coms in the area drawing a mere 10,000 in a stadium which holds more than 40,000. Well according to local the San Francisco Chronicle the Silicon Valley Classic will not be a bowl next year due to not just NCAA requirements but also the cost with no return to the backers. I guess SMU had better improve even more than we hoped in order to get to a bowl, because it looks like the WAC is only gonna have two automatics next year (one in Hawaii and one at Humanitarian Bowl in Boise).

[Charleston Pony]

put me down as one who favors a 16 team playoff to the current bowl system. The only question is whether a major overhaul of Division I football would be required to make it happen.

I-AA has a nice system going, where conference champs are in and several wild cards are rewarded. For the current grouping of I-A schools to have a 16 team format, there would have to be some merging of the mid-major conferences, because there are too many conferences. You might even realign Division I-A vs I-AA according to athletic (football) budgets, to make things fair (those who invest reap the rewards).

I'd definitely prefer a playoff format where conference championships are meaningful again and that runners up in the strongest conferences are rewarded for great seasons. Teams could be seeded and the 1st two rounds could be played at home sites of the higher seeds, ensuring strong attendance so we don't have to watch meaningless games played in front of 20,000 fans in 70,000 seat stadiums.