Two Bowls, Four Bowls, Six Bowls, Some Dollars . . .

News item: Jan. 1, 2000--The NCAA announced today that there are enough sanctioned college football bowl games to permit every college football team to appear in a bowl game after the 2001 season.

Actually, it only seems like the growth of bowl games is getting out of hand. Just because Finland has its very own bowl game doesn’t mean we’ve reached true saturation. In case you missed it, Alma College of Michigan, a Division III school, beat the “Northern Lights” club team at Oulu, Finland, 72-0, last June, in the first Arctic Bowl.

Back home, we find 18 major college bowl games on the 1985 year-end schedule. Ten years ago this month, there were 11. For the biggies, the New Year Year’s Day games, business is fine, thank you. Fine? We’re talking trainloads of money. Each participating school in the Rose Bowl, for example, is guaranteed $5.8 million this year, money that is shared by every university in both the Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences.

The Rose Bowl payout is more than twice that of any other bowl game. Runners-up are the Orange and Sugar bowls, at $2.25 million per school.

No wonder, then, that Pac-10 and Big Ten football people covet their exclusivity arrangement with the Tournament of Roses Committee. UCLA Athletic Director Peter Dalis, for example, was astonished recently at a reporter’s wondering out loud about how much more attractive the Rose Bowl would be if only the No. 1 and No. 2-ranked teams were invited.

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Dalis said. “Why would you want to tamper with a golden goose?”

USC Athletic Director Mike McGee says the Trojans’ share of the conference’s Rose Bowl shares each year accounts for roughly 5% of USC’s athletic department budget.

Most schools, however, either break even or even lose at bowling for dollars. Washington Athletic Director Mike Lude, whose Huskies play Colorado on Monday in Anaheim’s Freedom Bowl, puts the income his school will receive from the Freedom Bowl in perspective:

“We’ll hope to break even,” he said. “Let me put it this way: Our Freedom Bowl money will pay for all our tennis balls and golf balls next year.”

The total payout for all 18 major bowl games this month and on New Year’s Day comes to just under $22 million. No wonder, then, that 63 years after they first called that game in Pasadena the Rose Bowl game, folks are still trying to climb aboard what appears, on the surface at least, to be a gravy train.

Next year, two more bowl games may be added to the roster, when the NCAA is expected to sanction games for Tampa and Indianapolis. In addition, the NCAA says it keeps hearing from a group that wants to stage a bowl game in the Coliseum with a “black colleges championship game” format.

The Times talked to several athletic directors recently and asked them to comment on subjects relating to college bowl games. Namely, why there is never a shortage of schools who wish to participate in bowl games; why it is considered so important to participate in bowl games, and generally if they see any trends in the areas of football bowl games and the mother’s milk of college sports, money.

Some responses:

Said Lude, who is also chairman of the NCAA’s postseason football committee: “I believe we’re about to enter a period of a stable number of bowl games. In an average year, two to three groups appear before the NCAA postseason football committee with proposals for new bowl games. A couple of years ago, it was six.

“But a major college bowl game is an expensive proposition to get off the ground. And they’re so many now, it’s hard to find TV time for new ones.

“A lot of people think the growth of cable television will create a bunch of new bowl games, but I don’t see it. Maybe it’s too early to say now, but look at all the pro clubs who thought they were going to be making big money in cable TV (by the mid-1980s). It just hasn’t happened. Cable TV people keep coming to see me about putting the Huskies on cable TV throughout Washington. Why would I do that and jeopardize the best network radio contract ($1.4 million per year) in college football? Or jeopardize the sale of 52,000 season tickets, for that matter. The dollars everyone keeps talking about in cable TV just aren’t that significant yet.

“Why is it important for a football program to participate in a bowl? Because it’s important to recruits. Our coaches tell me one of the significant things in the minds of young high school football prospects--and their parents--is the opportunity to play in a program that goes to bowl games. It’s very important to them.

“That’s why we’re going to the Freedom Bowl. We’d go even if it cost us a little money--oh, sure. It’s a good investment. I can show you how a bowl appearance--any bowl--helps maintain season-ticket sales and funding. And don’t forget, football pays most of the bills. Washington football is responsible for 85% of the total income in our athletic department, and we run a $10-million department.”

USC’S McGee--”We’ve seen the number of bowl games increase over the past 10 years, but I think that’s going to level off now. For one thing, they’re (the NCAA) increasing the guaranteed minimum payout to $500,000 next year.

(Currently, that guaranteed minimum is $400,000, although the California Bowl is an NCAA-approved exception.)

“Why would a 6-5 team want to go to a bowl? I’ve been asked that. Remember, we’re a school that’s been to a bowl game every season we’ve been eligible to do so since 1972. We feel that’s a strong message in attracting talent.

“And we haven’t been on live television this year. The Aloha Bowl game will be shown live in 90% of the country. That’s important to us.

“And of course, the players wanted very badly to go. No, it wasn’t put to a vote. It was by acclamation, as I understand it. Ted Tollner asked the squad at a meeting if they wanted to go to the Aloha Bowl, and there was a big whoop. We interpreted that as a ‘yes’ by acclamation.

“We won’t make a whole lot of money. We can do the Aloha Bowl without a deficit. It costs over $100,000 to charter the airplane. And our hotel bill will be way over $100,000.”

UCLA’s Dalis--”I do think we’re stretching it a bit, with the number of bowl games we have now. But at the same time, I believe bowl games are good for college football. They’re very important to all the football programs.

“There is a lot of money involved, but money isn’t the reason you go. My football coaches tell me it’s very important to them, recruiting wise, for us to have a good bowl record, that we be known as as frequent bowl participants.

“Some institutions have actually lost money at some of the bowl games. And some of the bowl games themselves are losing money. I’ve heard in some conversations that in the next couple of years we may lose some bowl games, that a shakeout may be down the line.”

Mike Glazier, an NCAA official who serves with Lude on the NCAA post-season football committee, also confirms the notion that high school football stars could be described as the foundation of the entire structure of college football bowls.

“For the majority of major college football programs, bowl games are critical in the recruiting picture,” he said.

“I do some NCAA enforcement work, too, and we hear this all the time from young football players--that they decided to go to school A because it’d been to a bowl ‘three of the last four years,’ for example. They can recite a school’s bowl appearance history. It’s very meaningful to them.”

Unlike Lude at Washington, Tom Liegler foresees an impact by cable TV on football’s bowl picture within a few years. Liegler, general manager of the San Diego Convention Center Corp., ran Anaheim Stadium and Anaheim Convention Center for 15 years.

“I think we’re going to hear a lot about cable TV’s involvement in bowl games,” he said. “Remember, the primary source of income for successful bowls is TV revenue, and people are showing us some creative ways to generate dollars with cable. You simply have to consider cable, since the networks have long-term commitments to major bowls and because air time availability for new bowls is very limited.

“Look at what Ted Turner is doing with his Goodwill Games (a mini-Olympics, scheduled first for Moscow next summer). And Jerry Buss is doing some creative things with cable sports programming.”

When he ran Anaheim Stadium, Liegler heard frequently from promoters with bowl schemes.

“We heard from them all the time,” he said. “We heard from people who wanted all-star college football games in Anaheim Stadium. We heard from people who wanted to put a college bowl game there. One year, before Honolulu had Aloha Stadium, the Hula Bowl people wanted to transfer their game to Anaheim.

“The thing that stopped all of them was the amount of up-front money needed for guarantees. And the NCAA certification process for bowls is long and time consuming.

“The Freedom Bowl came into being because one group of people was able to overcome the obstacles and was willing to pay the price.”

The world of college bowl games in the mid-1980s is a competitive one, with bowl committees avidly vying for the teams of their choice.

Call it the Fun Factor.

According to the Dallas Times Herald, Cotton Bowl officials years ago pioneered the idea that bowl participants had to be entertained royally, to make sure word got out that the Cotton Bowl was a first-class operation.

Cotton Bowl teams were taken to dude ranches and fed copious amounts of prime beef.

Now, however, bowl people are falling all over themselves in the hospitality department. Examples:

--At the Florida Citrus Bowl, coaches Earle Bruce of Ohio State and LaVell Edwards of Brigham Young played a round of golf with Arnold Palmer. In addition, players received wardrobes consisting of sport shirts, satin jackets and sweaters. They also got to meet Shamu the Killer Whale and Al E. Gator at Sea World.

--At the Sun Bowl, players got a chance to ride bulls. And you thought going to Disneyland was fun.

--At the Liberty Bowl, players met Cybill Shepherd.

--At the Independence Bowl, players got to suck the heads of crawfish.

Explaining the latter, Independence Bowl director Paul Manasseh said: “They get all kinds of good things in the heads, you know. Lots of good juice, cayenne pepper and hot sauces. Good Loo-ziana cookin’.”

Yahoo.

‘I do think we’re stretching it a bit, with the number of bowl games we have now. But at the same time, I believe bowl games are good for college football. They’re very important to all the football programs.’

--PETER DALIS, UCLA athletic director

BOWL PAYOUTS PER TEAM

Rose $5.8 million Sugar $2.25 million Orange $2.25 million Cotton $2.1 million Cherry $1.2 million Fiesta $1.1 million Gator $900,000 Florida Citrus $750,000 Liberty $750,000 All-American $725,000 Holiday $650,000 Bluebonnet $500,000 Freedom $500,000 Peach $500,000 Sun $500,000 Aloha $400,000 Independence $400,000 California $140,000