Peach Bowl, Dropped by CBS, May Be in Trouble

The annual Peach Bowl college football game may be in trouble after receiving word from CBS television officials that the network will drop the Atlanta game from its post-season schedule, Executive Director Dick Bestwick said.

“Anything that has less than a positive impact threatens the existence of our game,” which was first played in 1967, he said. “It’s a possibility we have to address.”

Bestwick said he was not surprised by the notice from CBS because of recent decisions by the two other major networks, ABC and NBC. ABC has dropped the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., and NBC did not exercise its option to carry Orlando’s Citrus Bowl.

“Once the colleges got greedy with their new television plan, everything has gone downhill,” Bestwick said. “The value of college football has diminished. When the Peach Bowl began in 1967, there were 10 bowl games; next year there will be 19 or 20. The networks are beginning to take a hard look at the dollar value they receive from these games. Frankly, supply has exceeded demand.”

Bestwick said he will met with Peach Bowl board members to discuss the options available, including renegotiating with CBS and initiating discussions with Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System and other independent networks.

“I think, where CBS is concerned, the ratings of our game were satisfactory and there was no problem with the date (New Year’s Eve day),” Bestwick said. “But they were concerned about the caliber of the teams we’ve been able to bring here and the payoff to those teams.

“But it’s a Catch-22 situation. Without more community support and the television money, no bowl can attract the top teams because of what we can pay them. This is not Dick Bestwick’s bowl, it is the city’s bowl.”

Mark Carlson, director of sports information for CBS, said it was not likely the network would reconsider the Peach Bowl.

“We want to look in some other directions,” he said. “We had to ask the question, ‘Is this worth it to us right now?”’

Last year, the Peach Bowl matched Army, 8-3, against 6-4-1 Illinois, but barely met NCAA sanctioning requirements that 40 percent of the approximately 60,000 tickets be purchased locally.

CBS paid a rights fee of $375,000, and the Peach Bowl paid each team $475,000.

“The competition for network money is tremendous,” said Bestwick, “and they now are in the position of picking and choosing. Television is a business and if they’re not recovering their costs, they look elsewhere.”