CBS Bags Two Major Bowl Games in New Setup

With the announcement Thursday of a new bowl alliance, college football took a step toward eliminating the logjam of bowl games on New Year’s Day, and CBS showed it is still a major player in the sports television business.

Beginning after the 1995 season, the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls will alternate each year as the site of a matchup of the top two teams available to the alliance, which hopefully would be the top two teams in the country.

The games will be played in prime time on Dec. 31, Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. CBS will televise the Orange and Fiesta bowls, ABC the Sugar.

“This is part of our plan to be a major player and restore our involvement in sports programming to the highest level,” said David Kenin, president of CBS Sports.

Beginning with the 1996 season, CBS will carry Big East and Southeastern Conference games.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East, the SEC and the Big 12 (formerly the Big Eight) are involved in the new alliance. The Southwest Conference will be involved only for the 1995 season.

The Pacific 10 and the Big Ten will remain affiliated with the Rose Bowl, which could offer a national championship game only if the nation’s two top teams came from those conferences.

“Overall, we look at this as a positive,” said Jim Muldoon, Pac-10 director of communications. “It means it is unlikely that the Rose Bowl will host a national championship game, but it could also mean that the Rose Bowl will be televised unopposed by another bowl game, and that’s a plus.”

The big loser is the Cotton Bowl, which had bid to become what is being called a Tier 1 bowl game.

“I’ve seen better days,” Cotton Bowl executive John Scovell said. But he added: “The sun is still shining on the Cotton Bowl. The three bowls plus the Rose Bowl will eliminate only eight teams.”

To get Tier 1 designations, the Fiesta Bowl reportedly bid $118 million, the Orange Bowl $104 million and the Sugar Bowl $98 million. The money comes from sponsorship and television contracts. The average payout per team will be $8.5 million.