Bowls 2010: A tale of money, pride and goodies

Boston College has sold approximately 1,000 tickets for its Jan. 9 bowl game in San Francisco against Nevada. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is being played 3,000 miles away from the school's Chestnut Hill campus and the game seems like a colossal waste of time for BC.

What about Florida International’s bowl deal?

Pete Garcia, the athletic director, said FIU (6-6) will be given 10,000 tickets from the Little Caesars Bowl, which is to be played at Ford Field in Detroit on Dec. 26. FIU, which is appearing in its first bowl game, will pay expenses by selling those tickets for the game against Toledo (8-4).

It doesn’t seem logical. Leave south Florida for Detroit in the middle of the winter and assume a great financial risk.

Garcia and Gene DeFilippo, the athletic director at BC, hear the ridicule and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with quick rebuttal. What are obscure bowls to you are bonanzas for them.

“It’s a reward for our players to spend time in San Francisco and see the city and it’s a chance to connect with boosters there,” DeFilippo said. “We’re playing football for three hours in prime time on national television. How much is that worth?

“How much is it worth to be in the newspapers for a week out there? Just think of the exposure for us.”

The game, at second look, is not a stretch, either. BC (7-5) has one of the best run defenses to match against the lickety-split run offense of Nevada (12-1), the only team to beat Boise State.

“Our goal is to break even and we feel good about that and we’re confident,” Garcia said. “As far as the university is concerned, it is 3 1/2 hours of advertisement that some of these schools like us cannot afford. They are going to talk about FIU in prime time on December 26, the only college football game that night. Financially, do we have to come up with some additional money to go to the bowl game? Absolutely, but it’s worth it.”

The cynics talk about the bowls as if they leave scars and flood the accounting department in red ink.

Boston College will spend at least $750,000. It will get an allowance from the Atlantic Coast Conference for the trip. Money is not an issue.

“We went to this bowl last season and made probably $30,000,” DeFilippo said.

That kind of modest profit will pay for chinstraps in today’s multi-million dollar game of college football, but the money is secondary, even for today’s business-minded athletic directors.

The current bowl system may seem inconsequential to the college football fan -- and absurd to those clamoring for a playoff system -- but it is hard to find an athletic director whose team is going to a bowl who will debunk the system.

It might be even harder to find a player who would rather sit at home on the couch over the holidays with a bag of Cheetos and a soda.

“This is my fourth one and I haven’t had a bad experience yet,” said Roddy Jones, the Georgia Tech running back.

“Well, actually, slipping and falling on the mountain when we went to Boise was kind of rough, but other than that, it’s been great. I mean, we went to Miami and stayed on the beach in a hotel. I’ve gotten to see a lot of the country that I normally wouldn’t get to see.”

The Yellow Jackets are going to Shreveport, La., for the Independence Bowl. It might not be the rich destination some would choose, but the players can’t wait. They will play a football game and free gifts are waiting. The NCAA allows this kind of booty, which usually includes electronics and sweatsuits, a college students’ favorite haul.

You think Kansas State and Syracuse are banging on the newly minted New Era Pinstripe Bowl? The schools will get $3.5 million to split, which will take care of expenses and other amenities. The teams will play in Yankee Stadium. The players from Manhattan, Kan., will have Manhattan, N.Y., as a playground for almost a week.

The game, which was put together by the Yankees and the Big East, has already sold 40,000 tickets.

“There are some people that say there are too many bowl games, but I don’t know what that means,” said Nick Carparelli, Jr., senior associate commissioner of the Big East, who helped put together the game. “As long as fans watch the game, which they do at a high rate, and there are cities that want to put them on and schools that want to play, there are not too many games.”

Georgia (6-6) will play Central Florida (10-3) in the Liberty Bowl. The bowl payout is a little less than a million per team Expenses will come out of that and the rest goes into the SEC bowl fund, which is distributed to 12 schools.

The goal is not to bring home a truckload of cash.

“It’s a reward for your students that have worked so hard. It’s not about the money,” said Greg McGarity, Georgia's athletic director. “It’s about playing another game for all the hard work and all the time they put in. They spend a tremendous amount of time to play games 12 days out of the year, sometimes 13. This is another chance to do what they love to do.

“It’s extra practice time this month for student-athletes who have been red-shirted or were second and third-team players that want to move up the depth chart.”

Some bowl facts

• The first bowl game was played on Jan. 1, 1902, in Pasadena, Cal. It was called the Tournament East-West football game and was the forerunner of the Rose Bowl (1923).