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College Bowl Games...Where Everybody Wins

"I don't want to sniff a playoff. The bowl system is the best thing that college football has going for it. There's a reason why college football's popularity has never been bigger." -- Matt Hayes, Sporting News, May 5, 2009

The "College Bowl Game Experience"

  • A college football tradition for over 100 years
  • 28 Communities
  • 35 Bowl Champions
  • 6,900 student-athletes
  • 13,800 college band members
  • 1,280 cheerleaders
  • 100,000 + additional performers
  • 1.8 million fans
"For 100-plus years, it's been engrained in college football fans that every week matters, and that teams are judged on their season-long performance. The single most common argument college playoff advocates make is that: 'Every other sport does it.' What they never bother to consider is that perhaps there's a reason college football is different than those other sports." -- Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated, January 22, 2009

Institutions Win...

  • $260 million in annual payouts to NCAA schools. More than $1.8 billion has been paid out in just the past ten years and the bowls will conservatively pay out more than $2.6 billion over the next decade.
  • Most bowl games are non-profit organizations.
  • The excitement and visibility created by participating in a bowl game can generate increases in donations, applications, licensing revenues, TV contracts, season ticket sales and other long term revenue streams.
  • 28 communities provide funding and an unparalleled commitment to a quality experience to the teams and their fans.
  • 35 schools will end the season as Bowl Champions
"I can assure you there is no support among the college presidents in this country for a BCS playoff system. Furthermore, if anything there is a move back to (further embracing) the bowl system." -- Gordon Gee, President, Ohio State University

The Fans Win...
Bowl games have never been more popular. The 2009-10 Bowl Season produced:

  • Record attendance of 1.77 million fans
  • Record 145 million TV households
  • Record total ratings for Non-BCS Bowls
  • Stadiums filled to an average 86% of capacity
  • 12 bowls were sellouts
"There is no regular season that delivers like college football. In movie parlance, it's an unpredictable two-hour thrill ride." -- Teddy Greenstein, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1, 2007

The Regular Season Wins...
Bowl games have never been more popular. The 2009-10 Bowl Season produced:

  • Bowl games bring a measure of importance to the regular season un-matched by any other sport.
  • The National Championship begins with the season's first game in August and continues every week until early December.
"In basketball there is far less interest in the regular season than there is in the tournament. Everyone gets March Madness for the tournament. You don't want everyone to get January madness for football and forget about everything else that's happening in the regular season." -- Bob Stoops, Oklahoma Head Coach

"In Division I-A football, every game is a playoff. Once you lose one game, you're mostly out. If you lose two, you're definitely out. We got 12 playoff games. Teams take that approach. That's probably why there's so much interest. You stub your toe, you can never get back in." -- Rich Rodriguez, Michigan Head Coach

Communities Win...

  • Opportunity to showcase their communities to visiting fans and media
  • Bowls are a tremendous source of pride for these communities
  • More than $1 billion in economic impact for host communities each year
  • Hundreds of millions of dollars in exposure
  • Thousands of residents involved as volunteers
"The Sheraton Birmingham, as a host hotel, is proud of the economic benefits our property received during the 2009 Papajohns.com bowl. This is a huge boom for the entire BJCC complex during a time where we traditionally have been slow due to the holidays." -- Mark Noyes, GM, Sheraton Birmingham

"The economic impact is actually quite positive. We've been doing studies with the Holiday Bowl for several years now and consistently we've been able to demonstrate through direct intercept surveys, from game attendees that they're coming from out of town and they're leaving their dollars in San Diego." -- Carl Winston, Director, Center for Hospitality and Tourism Research, San Diego State University

Student-Athletes Win...

  • Players receive a reward for their commitment and hard work
  • Players take part in many diverse and unique experiences
  • Players receive added recognition
  • 3,500 players will end the season, and many their careers, as Bowl Champions
"Everybody needs to relax a little bit and understand the players are here to get an education. Let's make the conference championships a big deal and make the bowl games a reward. I hope that we never do see a playoff." -- Bobby Petrino, Arkansas Head Coach

"I believe in the experience… If you think the playoff system is going to be fun for the kids, except for the team that wins the final game, we'd be kidding ourselves." -- Gary Patterson, TCU Head Coach