or you could put it at the Meadowlands or whatever
Jim Delany's been saying the Big Ten's bowl picture is about to change significantly for a while now. An example from ESPN:
The Big Ten's future bowl lineup is starting to come into focus. There will be changes beginning in the 2014 season.
How many?
"It could be a lot," Delany told a group of reporters, including yours truly, on Wednesday.
Good, said everyone bored with central Florida. A couple of bowls on the hit list:
Two potential lineup additions are the Pinstripe Bowl in New York, a game the Big Ten has targeted for a while, and the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, where the two sides have mutual interest. Delany wants to keep a presence in Florida with games against the SEC, but it's unlikely the Big Ten will continue to play in three games -- Capital One, Outback and Gator -- every season. Remember also that Big Ten teams will appear in the Orange Bowl more often in the coming seasons.
With the expansion, the league is probably going to add a tie-in, FWIW. It does not sound like any of those exotic proposals wherein multiple conferences switch off a few bowls as dictated by attractiveness will fly.
What should the Big Ten do?
Diversify in both time and space. I'm sure the long-running Citrus matchup will continue; other than that let's get out of Florida, and honestly off of New Year's Day. The ridiculousness of four Big Ten teams playing at once on NYD has to weigh on TV executives as much as it does fans in this era of conference pride. (Or, in the Big Ten's case, conference hope-to-avoid-embarrassment.)
An ideal slate would have maybe two extra NYD games other than the Rose that go off at noon and eight plus a December 30th matchup at 8PM that acts as a lead-in to the new back-to-back tripleheaders. Also it would dump Tampa and Jacksonville for NYC and San Diego.
If the leagues were bold enough to move the Citrus to that slot that already-popular bowl would act as the gateway to a college football smorgasbord. Somebody is going to be playing at 8 on December 30th; the Big Ten would be wise to be a part of that.
Try to find some neutral ground. I hope one thing the Big Ten looks for when it's shopping itself around is neutral territory: playing a Big 12 team in San Francisco; playing a Pac-12 team in New Mexico, etc. If they do get in that NYC bowl that is a good start.
I'm doubtful they'll pull that off since bowl executives will be counting on ticket sales more heavily—as Andy Staples points out, one effect of this switch up is to get more favorable terms from bowl games since college football conferences finally realize bowl committees are useless relics. That means they'll be taking on more of the risk and they'll be focused on helping attendance as much as maximizing TV attractiveness.
In fact…
Hell, just invent your own bowl game. My favorite piece of corporate-boardroom raiderdom in this era of profit maximization was the Big 12 and SEC creating the jointly-owned Champions Bowl, which became the Sugar Bowl except owned by the leagues. Seeya, blazers. I'd like to see the league explore that model with a game in Chicago or Indy that they provide a high-profile team to.
And someone put a dang bowl in Denver already, which is sunny with an average high near 50 in January, is easily accessible from anywhere in the country, has an iconic stadium, and is the winter sports capital of the country. Also, horses are associated with football.
BOWL GAME ON THE MOON. halp ive been hacked by mark hollis
UPDATE: some hints from the ACC: they're playing in the Pinstripe Bowl, probably against a Big Ten team, and they're getting back the Gator, so expect the B10 to dump Jacksonville. Also, how would this work?
There is also a good possibility that when the Big Ten plays in the Orange Bowl, the ACC will slide into the Big Ten’s slot in the Citrus Bowl.
No me gusta.