Years ago going to a bowl game right after common season play was a big reward and a sign of excellence. Now it has come to be an absolute joke.
What has triggered this sad state of affairs? I’m glad you asked. The answer is money-grubbing bowl game organizers with dollar signs in their eyes. It is all about producing cash at the expense of respect for the game, the players, and their quest for excellence.
You see there are only 120 significant college football teams in Division 1-A, what the NCAA loves to get in touch with FBS (the Football Bowl Subdivision). The NCAA brain trust loves a lot more and more bowl games since they believe it promotes the sport, and becomes a funds magnet.
It also is killing the sport like a wounded animal running for its life following getting shot by a sportsman, not realizing that even if it escapes its hunter, it will bleed to death in the process.
yalla shoot of bowl games will at some point lead to football to loose its appeal as the number 1 spectator sport in America. That might sound unthinkable, but I have been covering or watching football for a half century, and can see history repeating itself.
I can keep in mind when baseball was king in America, and the powers to be believed it would under no circumstances quit becoming THE sport of selection. Then basketball became real preferred with rivalries at the pro level. Then football became all the rage. I can try to remember when pro football games had been not even televised due to a lack of demand. When you reside long adequate and spend attention, you see the cycles establishing.
Pro baseball made the error of expanding to far more and more teams, and additional and much more playoff games. Pretty soon the excellent of play was diminished, as well substantially revenue was involved, and the game became driven a lot more by dollars than the quest for excellence.
Baseball club owners put crummy teams on the field and people stopped coming. Some significant cities would not even support a lousy group. One more sport then became far more well-liked.
Here is the rub: We have 120 significant teams and now the bowl season has been expanded to 35 games. That suggests 70 of the 120 teams will play in a bowl game. The predicament has come to be so dire that the NCAA is speaking about waivers due to the fact not enough teams currently qualify to play in a bowl game.
The regular these days is 6 wins amongst 12 games – that’s just a stinking .500 record which does not definitely merit the reward of a bowl game. Heck, you employed to have to win 7 games to make it into a bowl game. Now there is speak of letting teams with a five-7 record play in a bowl game mainly because not adequate may qualify with six wins.
This is nonsense. One pernicious result of this is rewarding incompetency.
It reminds me of parents who all but force their kid to play little league baseball when the kid could care much less. He then plays 12 games on a group that loses every game and, as a reward, they give every single kid on the group a trophy so their feelings are not hurt by their incompetence.
Parents also really feel compelled to have images taken of their small “stars” and have them place on baseball cards like they are some sort of huge league player. How stupid. The kid learns that becoming a zero counts for everything. He feels like a practically nothing and is a nothing at all.
He is denied the blood, sweat and tears of operating his butt off to essentially create abilities, understand to turn into a group player, and appreciate some actual, genuine life accomplishment – a far extra beneficial lesson that will help him all through his life.
Final year, 71 teams became bowl-eligible by winning at least six games, and 68 of them played in bowl games. This year, 64 teams are bowl eligible and 20 could be if they win once again. Bowl selections are to be announced on Sunday, Dec. 5.
Unless somebody with authority puts their foot down, we may well soon see 60 bowl games with just about every key college participating. That may possibly make a person a lot dollars, but the games will be terrible and the players will be cheated out of anything quite crucial – the feeling of good results that comes from challenging function and sacrifice, and cannot be replaced.
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