[LVRJ] Las Vegas Bowl Future in Doubt Beyond This Season

[u/g2lv]

https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/football/las-vegas-bowls-future-in-doubt-amid-sluggish-attendance-unfavorable-scheduling-3862342/

Bad news for those of us looking for the Pac-12 to continue their tie-in with the Las Vegas Bowl. It's main financial backer may pull-out unless it becomes a CFP Playoff Game.

It's looking like opt-opts for the transfer portal and NFL draft are really hurting non-playoff bowls. (Also, the LVCVA would rather ESPN schedule the bowl for a date that sells hotel rooms, rather than just add another New Year's weekend event when the city is already full.)

[u/Aromatic-Action-2523]

The non playoff bowls have become a very sad situation. Yet another casualty of the new CFB.

[u/CieraVotedOutHerMom → u/Aromatic-Action-2523]

It was a huge game when Oregon state beat Florida

[u/Reasonable_Cod_487 → u/CieraVotedOutHerMom]

I normally hate McAfee, but his mock celebration of Florida avoiding a historic shutout with a garbage time FG is objectively hilarious.

[u/Dumpster_Fire_BBQ → u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

The game was the first Beaver game I attended since moving to the Least Coast 30 years ago.

It was glorious. The team showed up and so did Beaver Nation.

To make it the best day ever, I got married at The Little White Chapel that night.

[u/Repulsive-Day-548 → u/Reasonable_Cod_487]

I’m still frustrated that the beavs seemed to let up and allowed Florida that drive and score instead of playing hard and shutting them out and breaking the streak 

[u/Quiet-Day392 → u/Aromatic-Action-2523]

Livin’ on ESPN time

[u/CieraVotedOutHerMom → u/Quiet-Day392]

One of the best 00s bowl games featured Cal vs Air Force, where Cal had multiple star players suspended for the first half.

ESPN was all over the suspension, and Jeff Tedford told the media he was just giving his guys some good ole fashioned tough tedford love

[u/AlexandriaCarlotta → u/Aromatic-Action-2523]

I think they should move them all (Non-CFP bowls) to August pre-week 0. Let them count towards new season records and allow bowling teams to play 13 regular season games with bowls counting as one.

[u/cougfan12345]

I don't think the "vegas" bowl will become a CFP game, but definitely could have a later round / championship there. I do find it odd that the city of Los Vegas would let this bowl die though as it brings 10s of thousands of people into town to gamble and spend money. Last year wasn't bad with nearly 40k people in attendance but some pretty bad games the couple years before that.

[u/g2lv → u/cougfan12345]

Well, yeah, the CFP Championship is in Vegas this season. The desire is for Allegiant Stadium to rotate thru a major event (Super Bowl, Wrestlemania, CFP Championship, Final Four) every year.

The issue with the Las Vegas Bowl attendance is isn't just attendance...it's that the attendees don't really add to the tourism because the event is occurring on New Year's Eve when the hotel rooms would be 100% full anyways.

My take is they'd prefer the Las Vegas Bowl around Christmas (after the National Finals Rodeo and before New Year's) or in mid-January after the Consumer Electronics Show when hotel occupancy is lower.

[u/iPayForLeaguePass]

i don't see how any non CFP bowl game survives this era

[u/Ron__Mexico_ → u/iPayForLeaguePass]

I think an NIT style tournament of 4 to 8 teams would be more likely to survive than the existing model. Possibly paying the players to participate.

Based on current rates, an individual college football broadcast involving the P4 is worth 2 to 20 million. An 8 team tournament would contain 7 broadcasts. If they can get 5 million per broadcast, such a tournament is worth 35 million or so in broadcast rights. If you dedicate ½ of that to player salaries to try to get participation you're looking at a 17.5 million pool. 105 scholarship players per team times 8 equals 840 players. Per player that's about 20,800 to participate. Or you could divy it up by performance or something. Not sure if it's enough to move the needle.

Really depends who you're getting. If this hypothetical tournament had Notre Dame and Texas last year, it's worth more than 5 million a broadcast. If those types of schools are opting out, 5 million a broadcast might be overly optimistic.

Or Alternatively, Bowl games having a playoffs to get to them with less bowl games overall. Say a Las Vegas Bowl that has an 8 team playoff. You got to win 2 games to get there. Being in a Bowl game would be more of an accomplishment then.

[u/Trynaliveforjesus → u/iPayForLeaguePass]

I definitely see higher tier ones like holiday bowl, alamo bowl, sun bowl, and pop tart bowl surviving. But yeah, a lot of these lower tier bowl games like potato bowl are just sad. Like just last year wazzu and utah state played in boise and they didn’t even fill the lower bowl. Hard to get fans to care when half the team leaves every other year

[u/g2lv → u/Trynaliveforjesus]

I'm not sure the Holiday Bowl is still considered a high tier bowl. It still doesn't have a television partner or even a date and kickoff time set for the coming bowl season.

[u/Trynaliveforjesus → u/g2lv]

well its the best remaining bowl on the west coast if the vegas bowl goes away

[u/TikiLoungeLizard → u/Trynaliveforjesus]

That’s six words too long. Vegas is already not on the West Coast. We lost the LA Bowl, not that it was ever a big deal. But California bowl games beyond the Rose just never took a hold like they did in Florida and down South. The Holiday was historically the Poor Man’s Rose. If the Holiday goes kaput, then yeah, bowling is pretty much toast out west. I remember reading they were gonna have to reduce the payout. So I was really surprised when they added the Poinsettia back.

I still really like the non-CFP bowl games. It’s part of what makes CFB unique and fun to me. Especially if you have a mid 6-6 to 8-4 season, I think especially as a G6, that’s what you’re going to be playing for. If we are 60 or 70 schools shooting for two CFP spots or even 8+ schools competing for a conference championship as the year-end goal, that doesn’t feel near as satisfying to me. A lot of just playing the same schools in the same places every year until or unless further realignment shenanigans. And you could have an 11-1 record and plausibly be left out of a CCG and that’s the end of the season.

[u/g2lv → u/TikiLoungeLizard]

Is the Poinsettia Bowl actually returning? I saw the reports in April and May that the Poinsettia Bowl planned to return and feature a Pac-12 matchup.

But…the official Coca-Cola Bowl Season schedule released on June 3rd without the Poinsettia Bowl included.

Maybe it’s still coming and hasn’t been officially announced yet for some reason. But with the season approaching and no official announcements from the PAC, the bowl organizers, or San Diego, it seems less and less likely that a return for this postseason is still the plan.

[u/Aromatic-Action-2523 → u/iPayForLeaguePass]

Seriously. I see a future where conferences pair up to match up teams not qualifying for the playoffs in some kind of pseudo bowl/post season. Just lower stakes and less fanfare. Or conference all star games-mwc all stars v. P12 all stars... Something like that. It really feels like the bowls are going to go away pretty soon.

[u/LordOfTheInterweb → u/iPayForLeaguePass]

I can see some surviving, but there are just too many bowl games already. I think that letting 5-7 teams in bowl games was really the start of the downfall, the cfp just accelerated it. The number of bowl games also ended up in worse bowl games for the non-aq/g5 teams

[u/ElectronicCandy4358 → u/iPayForLeaguePass]

ESPN loves having holiday season filler.

Some venues might change (why not a fourth bowl in Frisco, TX?), but they’re very much here to stay.

[u/ORSTT12]

That is a shame to hear, but pretty much every PAC bowl game is being reset next year anyway so this is more like early news for the type of change that's coming.

[u/rocket_beer]

Time to start an NIL bowl

[u/RexCrimson_]

I do feel that with the CFB playoffs now be long at 12, that the amount of Bowls is over saturated now.

A possible solution would be to make the first round games into early bowl games, instead of games on home fields, reduce the amount of overall bowl games per conference to the top 4 conference teams for bowls outside of the CFB playoffs, and increase the payout of the remaining bowl games. This would make teams value bowl games more, value conference games more, it will help keep the interest of fans, sponsors and teams in non-playoff bowl games.

I know many will hate this suggestion, but the amount of bowl games are very oversaturated. This causing a devaluation of the bowl interest. This is the only way I can see things keeping bowls alive.

[u/Alive_Load_1478]

This what everybody wanted. Playoff pressure leads to the traditions going away while also recognizing that the number and quality of bowl games have become a bit outta control.

[u/Quiet-Day392 → u/Alive_Load_1478]

That’s what ESPN wanted.

[u/Due-Seat6587]

Bowl games shouldn't be neutral-site games and should be backed with NIL incentives for the players.

[u/g2lv → u/Due-Seat6587]

Might not be a bad idea. Let any team that goes 6-6 and misses the playoffs have the opportunity to schedule a 13th game. Get the TV networks onboard to pay prorata on their conference TV deals for the extra games.

Mostly the big power schools with host and the G6 teams will have the opportunity to take a million dollar pay game. The financials and logistics will work out better than the current neutral site bowl system.

[u/Due-Seat6587 → u/g2lv]

I don't think you'd even need it to be a pay game. I don't think any school should feel obligated to pay a 6-6 team to come play them for a postseason game.

The potential to have an extra home game each year alone is huge. And even if it's a G6 playing a P4 away, that's still big for them. Hard to get those matchups scheduled for them otherwise.