Sykotyk;1044360 wrote:I'm not watching. Busy tomorrow. If I wanted to, I could make time to see it. But A) the game has zero interest to me as a matchup, B) I feel this 'championship' game is a farce, and C) I'd rather not watch than watch and wish I didn't.
The problem with college football from the administrators point of view is that the bowls are so successful because they're so well-watched, etc.
Uhm, no. They're well watched because they're generally large intersectional matchups that we rarely get to see in the regular season. They're strewn out in primetime throughout the week from mid-December until mid-January now. They NYD bowls (played on the 2nd to accommodate television) are thriving off of ancient history. If Oregon-Wisconsin was played on a Monday night in Week 6 of the regular season people would watch at almost the same rate as they did an afternoon game on an observed national holiday. But, we don't get that game. Instead we get Alabama-UT Chattanooga, etc. How thrilling. So, we use the bowls as our last gasp to see how various areas of the country compete with eachother.
Which, this farce of a game fails to let us do. Instead, we're rehashing something we've already watched and already know the outcome. And the opposite result will have little meaning to us.
Secondly, it's college football. In fact, the last college football of the season. So, suffice it to say, college football fans will watch. It's our last chance to see it until August. So, knowing that time is fleeting and we're running out of games, we'll watch Arkansas State-Northern Illinois if only to take in one more game.
And finally, it's on every freakin' day. I get football. Free to my television. Every night in primetime. Who cares the matchup. I'm not sitting there on Saturday afternoon trying to decide which of the 15 games on TV to watch. It's one game. On one channel.
The truth is, we'd do the same thing with the playoffs. We'd watch every game if it was one-game at a time spread out. Big intersectional matchups that we're dying to witness. Primetime, once per day. Because it's college football and it's still on TV this season.
But, the money would be spread out over the entire NCAA, not just the 65 big BCS schools. So, therefore the belief 'we love the bowls' persists.
It's like asking: Do you love your wife? Yes. If you knew you'd only be with her for one more month, wouldn't you make that last month count? Yes. If you had many opportunities to do things with your wife in that time, would you? Yes. If you had to choose between your wife sick and not having a wife, would you want your sick wife? Yes. But, would you rather have a sick wife or a healthy wife? (insert obvious answer)
That's the playoffs. But, since we're not given that option, we take the best option available. And that's the bowls. We don't like the bowls. We really don't. But, we accept it because that's all we have. And we'd rather accept it then not have it at all.
Great post!
However, as far as I'm concerned, the Bowl season ended tonight with Northern Illinois/Arkansas State.
