The Blue Board

Hopefully people stop going more and more each year so the Bowls all die a painful and slow death

Maybe if I knew my money wasn't lining the pockets of people who steal from charity and universities I would go

Bowl attendance has always had it's ups and downs. They can show that as a whole, the number is down from last year and this or that, but they don't take into consideration how many more bowls there are. You used to have 6-5 teams as the limit as far as who could go and now with 12 games, more teams are bowl eligible and there are more bowls, which lead to more crap bowls, IMO.

Also, the addition of the BCS has hurt the attendance at the BCS bowls by setting up matchups that people just don't care to see in those games.

Take the Orange Bowl for example. Years ago, that game would have been Kansas St vs Florida St. With the way FSU fans filled the OB and the way K St fans traveled to the Fiesta Bowl, you would have had a sold out game.

Similar for the Sugar Bowl. If we still had the BCSCG, you would still have Florida to the Sugar, but paired with Oklahoma or someone like that would have brought a bigger crowd, IMO.

I do admit that Florida's traveling party for that game was pretty embarrassing. You would think that with a 2nd year coach and coming off 2 subpar years that there would have been more excitement around the program. Obviously the players had the same feelings about being there.

I think conference affiliation in the BCS.....or selection bowls as they will be called, is actually good for attendance. Getting more of the games back to being New Year's Eve or New Year's Day would help with attendance as well, IMO. It gives fans a chance to prepare to know when, if not always where their team is playing. Going to a game on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th isn't as easy to make work for some adults, especially in places that school starts back for their kids a few days after New Year's.

Although attendance dropped by 2,114, the Rose Bowl had the highest attendance of all the bowls, including the National Championship game.

Also, of all the bowls, the Rose Bowl is the only one that has not had one hint of scandal or corruption attached to it. Those that govern it, receive the lowest salary of all the bowls.

They need to do away with automatic qualifiers. Nobody wants to almost make it to the NC game then go play a Utah or Louisville in a BCS Bowl. Or go play an unranked Wisky team just because they won their crappy conference. The top team has nothing to win. Who cares? "You were supposed to win". "You only won by 20?" "You gave up 17 points to a Big East team"? No thanks. I'm not spending my money and vacation days to go see these crappy matchups. They need to put the top teams agonist the top teams regardless of who is what conference.

Also, I agree with the guy above about going to the same bowls every year. I know a lot are regionally based due to attendance, but it's old going to the same cities. I'd like to see the SEC go to the Rose or Fiesta. They are in a place we don't get a chance to visit much and it would make for a decent vacation. We can go to New Orleans all year long on any random weekend. A bowl game in a different city would be a reason to go somewhere outside of the region you wouldn't normally go to. But I also understand that most teams don't travel like Alabama.

For perspective's sake:

The two largest bowls in terms of stadium capacity are the Heart of Dallas Bowl and the Rose Bowl.
Heart of Dallas Bowl capacity: 92,100
Rose Bowl capacity: 91,136

Then there is a HUGE dropoff in stadium size. The next bowl in terms of capacity is the Cotton Bowl, with a capacity of 80,000. For reference the Orange Bowl capacity is 75,540, which was also the site of the National Championship.

The BCSCG set an attendance record there as well.

IMO, the only "real" playoff is done the way the MLB, NBA, and NHL do it. I don't view the NFL's playoff system to be much better than what we have in CFB.