I know it is easy to wax nostalgic about when I was younger, but when I began following this sport in 1978, there were 15 bowl games total, the Big Four (Cotton, Sugar, Rose, Orange) on New Year’s Day, the Bluebonnet on NYE, and the other 10 played between about December 21 and 30. The Fiesta (back then) was a Christmas day game, in part because the NFL went over 30 years refusing to play on Christmas Day after low ratings for the longest NFL game of all time. Of the then 20 ranked teams, 19 were in bowls and the other (Michigan State) would have been but for probation.
18 years later (1996, Stallings’s last year), there had only been a total of 3 more concurrent bowl games added to the schedule (18).
But then:
2001 - up to 25
2006 - up to 32
2014 - up to 39
Last year - including the playoff games - there were 46.
And what caused all of this?
Well, let's see, the explosion of bowl games runs right along a path where ESPN:
a) got control of much of the scheduling
b) saw a chance for cheap December programming
c) could broadcast the games regardless of how many people actually showed up to see it
There's an old saying that "the rich get richer and the poor get children," but I'd modify that to say, "The corporate suits get richer and the fans get hosed."
Until such time as we vote with our remote controls and ticket purchasing, they'll keep doing it.
