We’re Getting More Bowl Games—Whether We Like It Or Not

We’re Getting More Bowl Games—Whether We Like It Or Not

The NCAA will add three additional bowl games in 2020. You’ll have to forgive us if we forget to tune in.

Jun 11, 2018 by Kolby Paxton
We’re Getting More Bowl Games—Whether We Like It Or Not

The NCAA’s competition committee recommended that three bowl games be added for the 2020 season on Monday. 

Myrtle Beach and Chicago are reportedly all-but-done deals as the hosts of the first two games, with Charleston and Tempe—among others—in the mix for the third and final site.

If this ends up taking place it would mean that 65 percent of FBS teams would play in bowl games that year. That’s 84 of the 130 teams. 

Isn’t it about time we stopped adding bowl games?

We have already reached a point in which keeping 5-7 teams out of postseason play has become difficult. These additions would make it all but impossible. 

I’m all for the New Year’s Six bowl games, the Outback Bowl, the Alamo Bowl, et al. I’m all for games that mean something between two teams that deserve to be there, but I’m not for the Cure Bowl or the Bahamas Bowl. I’ll pass on the Camellia Bowl.

What’s more, it sure looks like no one else—save for alumni—cares, either. 

Last year’s Bahamas Bowl which featured Ohio and UAB netted 882,000 viewers on ESPN. ESPN’s College Gameday show racked up over 1 million viewers every week throughout the season. Portland State, an FCS team, faced off against BYU early in the year and that game tallied 939,000 viewers.

We can even take it a step further and evaluate the lack of exciting atmospheres these lower-tier bowl games produce. 

In last year’s New Orleans Bowl, which featured North Texas and Troy, just 24,904 people gathered in the Superdome. Last year’s Cure Bowl? 19,585 were in attendance in Orlando. When these smaller schools play at a neutral site, it’s a recipe for disaster.

The bottom line is there is no room for more bowl games like these. The teams participating don’t deserve to be playing another game and, frankly, college football fans just aren’t interested. 

Let’s get back to the days where every bowl game mattered and people actually cared about them.


Written by Gage Trexler