Hawaii ESPN: June Jones to Decline Liberty Bowl if Champs

[leopold]

I have to say I'm biased because I go home to Memphis every Christmas and I am dreaming of watching SMU play in front of 60,000 people, beating an SEC team in my hometown. So I admit to maybe not thinking clearly.

But outside of weather this should be a no-brainer.
- We play on Christmas Eve? Nobody outside of a hardcore football fan or SMU fan will watch a football game Christmas Eve, so forget the only sporting event argument. There is a reason no other sports even is on - it's CHRISTMAS EVE.
- WAC team nobody cares about, or every SEC fan watching us play a beatable SEC team. You want people nationally to take us seriously? Beat an SEC team in a bowl, it actually might help.
- Financially it's a not even close - Hawaii is a ruinously expensive trip for teams to make, even bowl teams - it will end up costing the school alot. Memphis, by comparison, is practically next door and dirt cheap. If SO wants to make any money on this, it has to Memphis.

If we end up, say, 12-1, or 10-3, and a spot opens up in a halfway decent bowl because a conferene can't fill it's flippin' 7th or 8th spot it had a contract for, like the Independence Bowl, then sure, take that - I guess I understand. But we can't end up in Hawaii in front of 12,000 people every year. It worked out for us last year, even if we did lose, but we need to make an attempt to move up a little in the bowl scene.

[Stallion]

one thing to consider is that CUSA pools all Bowl revenue except for expenses so SMU is not getting more from going to a higher paying bowl, but the Bowls pay higher amounts to get the right to choose first

[leopold]

Then financially it's not even close - the bowl pays more for a top choice and there is aworld of difference in expenses. Outside of getting an actual BCS bowl bid the Liberty Bowl would be our best option.

Darnit, the biggest problem with the bowls isn't the BCS - it's the contracts every medium to lesser bowl has for both spots. We could conceivably have 10 or more wins this year. The Alamo bowl in San Antonio, the Holiday or Gator Bowl, yes, even the Cotton Bowl should be a possibility for an 11 win team. But nooooooo, we could end up in the Papa John's bowl. That is what is screwed up to me.

But it IS fun to talk about bowl possiblities!!

[Dutch]

Then financially it's not even close - the bowl pays more for a top choice and there is aworld of difference in expenses. Outside of getting an actual BCS bowl bid the Liberty Bowl would be our best option.

Darnit, the biggest problem with the bowls isn't the BCS - it's the contracts every medium to lesser bowl has for both spots. We could conceivably have 10 or more wins this year. The Alamo bowl in San Antonio, the Holiday or Gator Bowl, yes, even the Cotton Bowl should be a possibility for an 11 win team. But nooooooo, we could end up in the Papa John's bowl. That is what is screwed up to me.

But it IS fun to talk about bowl possiblities!!

by that logic, AFB or TicketCity would be our best options. little to no travel costs, and still same payout (shared by all CUSA)

[PonyLove]

Christmas in Hawaii is fabulous.

[Mestengo]

Hawaii bowl - payout = -$500,000
Need a bowl game in the west Indies.

Can't afford Hawaii? To bad.

[Dutch]

Hawaii bowl - payout = -$500,000
Need a bowl game in the west Indies.

Can't afford Hawaii? To bad.

not all of us own seaworthy yachts.

[mrydel]

Christmas in Hawaii is fabulous.

And you can still go no matter what bowl we go to.

[Mestengo]

Hawaii bowl - payout = -$500,000
Need a bowl game in the west Indies.

Can't afford Hawaii? To bad.

not all of us own seaworthy yachts.

Traveocity.com $1200

[Garret]

Then financially it's not even close - the bowl pays more for a top choice and there is aworld of difference in expenses.

CUSA pools all their bowl money, so SMU will get the same amount of money whether they go to the Liberty Bowl or the Hawaii Bowl.

CUSA covers the travel expenses for their bowl teams so *CUSA* will be paying for the travel expenses (air, hotel, per diem) for the SMU team, coaches, and some others to go to whatever bowl game SMU goes to. CUSA loses a *lot* of money on that deal, but Tulsa last year actually made more of a profit going to the Hawaii Bowl than they would have going to any other bowl.

I was at the Hawaii Bowl last year and there was a lot of coverage out of Oklahoma about the financial implications of Tulsa going to the Hawaii Bowl. Their AD was open about how CUSA paid all the travel expenses for their group and CUSA even paid for the 10,000 tickets that CUSA has to buy. Tulsa got to keep half of the money for any of the tickets they sold, CUSA ate the other half of those tickets and 100% of the unsold tickets.

I totally understand how the travel expenses for *fans* are higher for the Hawaii Bowl. But the argument about the payout or travel expenses means NOTHING to SMU because of the interesting way CUSA spreads the money and how the conference wants bowl exposure so much that it accepts huge monetary losses to cover their teams.

[Pony_Law]

ok so the reasons June wants to go to the hawaii bowl is 1) June is a big man in the hawaii community and has a lot of friends there and property, why not take a payed trip back home? 2) He has a bit of a grudge still for how he was treated at U of H concerning resources ect and wats to stick it to him 3) he is a bit afraid of being embarassed by an SEC team again even though 6th sec team will not be any where near the GA sugar bowl team.

All of these reason to go for Hawaii are June jones reasons; none of them are SMU reasons. SMU needs to go to the Liberty bowl if invited. The money is better, its a well know and respected bowl against an opponet we will get some respect for beating, and it's pretty close to home so we actualy have a chance of traveling a few thousand fans

[Mestengo]

2200 in Hawaii

[smupony94]

8700 if we go to Liberty Bowl

[mr. pony]

...All of these reason to go for Hawaii are June jones reasons; none of them are SMU reasons. ...

Post of the Thread.

[lwjr]

I say let's focus on beating UCF next Saturday.

What's iwjr stand for?

Only the Shadow knows! and Mrydel, he is correct.. Was not to creative when I came up with the ponyfans ID name. Thought about changing it, to lazy