Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Actually Fights Interest in Bowl Games

The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is hosted in the beautiful AT&T Park in San Francisco, home to the San Francisco Giants and featuring scenic views of the San Francisco bay.  It’s been played there since 2002 and has previously been named the Emerald Bowl, San Francisco Bowl, and the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl.

Last year’s matchup featuring a 13-1 Nevada Wolfpack team, fresh off an upset of previously undefeated Boise State and ranked 13th in the season ending poll against a 7-5 Boston College team.  The University of Nevada is 4 hours from San Francisco, and thus, it’s not overly surprising that they managed to sell not just their 11,000 ticket allotment but an additional 4,369 tickets on top of those and were told they would receive no more tickets.  Boston College was actually pleading fans to buy their tickets so they could give them for free to local charities.   Yikes.  Regardless, the game had 41,063 people in attendance.

Fast forward to this year where the bowl featured a matchup between 6-6 Illinois that hadn’t won in 12 weeks and had fired their coach at midseason and 6-7 UCLA (6 hour drive) that was fresh off a stomping at USC and a blowout against Oregon in the Pac 12 championship.  Not only that, UCLA had to plead the NCAA for a special exemption to even get into the bowl game.  As of Dec 30th, the day before the game, Illinois had moved under 2,000 of their 8,000 ticket allotment, and UCLA wasn’t making these figures available.  It’s fair to assume that UCLA’s were going better, but still not well.  Maybe after having to beg to get in, they didn’t want to admit they couldn’t find paydirt.

Attendance at the game clocked in at 29,878, a drop of 11,185 from the previous year.  That’s a 27% drop, but who’s counting?

The Fight Hunger Bowl wasn’t even the worst stink bomb of this bowl season.

The Poinsettia Bowl is hosted in beautiful San Diego, California.  Last year, a matchup between San Diego State, a solid team that defines “local”, and Navy in a strong Navy city drew over 48,000.  This year, a matchup between two teams from halfway across the country, Louisiana Tech and a slightly down TCU, drew 24,600.  For those doing their math at home, that’s an astounding nearly 50% drop.

So what’s going on here?

1. Matchups matter.  Throwing together any old teams and charging whatever you feel like for tickets won’t necessarily attract crowds, especially when all the games are live on ESPN in HD.
2. More people may be electing to stay at home and watch on TV.  Nothing gets better coverage on TV than the college football bowl season.  Let’s say you’re a TCU fan considering a trip to San Diego.  If you’re not excited about this matchup, wouldn’t you strongly consider just staying in Texas and watching on TV with some fellow alums?
3. Travel and a down economy are a rough mix.  People can seem to stomach a short drive to see their favorite team, but when you’re asking them to fly across the country to play in a game that’s supposed to be an “honor” against a mostly invisible Louisiana Tech team or, frankly, an embarrassing UCLA team, fans just aren’t going to make the trip.

But for their efforts, they sustained a loss to a pitiful Illinois team, likely lost money on the experience, and in all likelihood, inspired exactly no one to consider attending UCLA.  Except for maybe Jim Mora Jr.  But let’s be honest, he’s just hoping to get an NFL gig again and would have accepted the job at TC Williams High School if Denzel Washington didn’t have that job already.  He’s still looking at the Miami Sharks position, if Al Pacino decides to quit due to old age.  Maybe he can be coach in waiting.

The athletic department wanted to avoid a 2 year bowl drought, which would have been the first two year bowl drought at UCLA since 1997.  In fact, they’ve only missed 3 bowls since 1997.  Since Athletic Director Dan Guerrero started at UCLA in 2002, the man who said this was for the seniors, the Bruins have missed two bowl games.  Missing in 2008 and 2010 with 4-8 records, Dan had to take the opportunity to sneak into the bowl game this year.  With a new hire coming in mid December and a bowl appearance, albeit a shoddy one, Dan can sell that the program is going in a positive direction.  Don’t forget that the previously dominant basketball program has also been decidedly average the past few seasons.

My Festivus Grievance – Amateurism

As millions…okay, not millions…

As hundreds of people around the world gather around the shiny aluminum pole to celebrate Frank Costanza’s made up holiday, sharing their Festivus grievances with one another before joining in a good old fashioned family wrestling match (it’s not over till you pin Uncle Barney!), I’d like to share with all of you my Festivus grievance.

I’m fed up with the concept of amateurism in college athletics.

Or shamateurism, as some call it.  Shout out to Jason Whitlock.

The college athlete experience is supposed to be built around amateurism, the seemingly noble ideal that young men and women leave their homes to go to schools in exotic places like Starkville, Mississippi to battle on their field or court of choice and receive a free education for their labors.  Whoop de doo!  All the who’s down in whoville now join together and sing that song about welcoming Christmas or whatever!

But we now know that while in name, student athletes receive free education, their scholarships actually fall, on average, $3000 short of the full cost of attendance estimate made by many of the schools.   The NCAA agreed to increase the package of student athletes by $2000 (awesome, right?) but then a plethora of schools, 125 at last notice, decided that they didn’t want to close the scholarship gap and the $2000 increase was put on hold.

The NCAA also passed an opportunity for athletes to get multiyear scholarships from the schools, because under the current system, athletes are only allowed to receive 1 year scholarships, renewable at the end of each year.  If an athlete is injured, or a new coach comes in and decides to go a different way with athletes they CAN cut them.  Cutting someone who got hurt sounds like a situation where schools are definitely looking out for these guys, no?  The grinches at Boise State hated this rule so much because “”For a prospective student-athlete, the decision as to where to attend college and participate in athletics is most likely the biggest decision they will make at that point in their lives. That tough decision becomes more complicated when the student and his/her family have to factor in what school ‘offers the best deal…’”  You’re right, that sounds terrible!  I would hate for a school to prioritize an athlete’s education over whether the player was, in Indiana State’s words “athletically useful”.  Can’t you feel the holiday cheer?  Multiyear scholarships will soon be put on hold, as 72 schools have decided they want this rule overturned as well.

We have UCLA withholding player’s bowl stipend, the check that was used to pay for food while the athletes were on campus during the weeks after classes were let out because they were practicing for the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.  The reason they withheld the check?  The players missed voluntary workouts during exams.  Yeah.

And about those “voluntary” workouts?  And the education these athletes are supposed to be receiving?  The NCAA legislation claims that athletes are only allowed to spend 20 hours per week on athletic activities.  Well, about that.  Those 20 hours don’t include voluntary workouts, often mandatory to maintain one’s spot on the team, most of game day (only counts for 3 hours regardless) and travel days (not counted at all).  Top level NCAA Division I athletes report spending 43.3 hours per week on athletic activities.  Sounds like a full-time job to me.

What of those travel days you ask?  Boise State and San Diego State just signed on to a conference that features numerous opponents 2500 miles away.  I’m sure they did because they care so much about the student athlete experience.  Won’t 7 hours on a plane help them get caught up on their studies?

Here’s the truth – amateurism is a sham.  College athletics is big business for everyone involved, even the schools who claim to be losing money on it.  Colleges believe athletic spending drives applications (at least anecdotally, this is true), even if it hurts students when they get there.  The players are paid employees, albeit poorly paid employees, paid in an education that they don’t have time (and often the skills) to take advantage of.  Have you tried to study with a 40 hour per week job?  C’mon, it’s ridiculously difficult for those of us with desk jobs.

Let’s end this sham.  You have two choices – change the system to a just system where you compensate these young people fairly or if you can’t afford that, shut down the athletic program.  In every other walk of life, if you don’t have enough money to play, you can’t play, so why wouldn’t that be here?  Regardless of some people’s addiction to this mess of a system, we don’t need college sports.

I’m praying for a Festivus miracle.  Help us, Frank Costanza!

Now who’s going to pin Uncle Barney?

Schools with the most appearances in the BCS rankings 2002-2011

The number after their name denotes how many times they appeared in the rankings

Ohio State 9
Oklahoma 8
Texas 8
USC 8
Boise State 7
Florida 7
LSU 7
Virginia Tech 7
Georgia 6
West Virginia 6
Wisconsin 6
Auburn 5
Florida State 5
Miami 5
Michigan 5
Oklahoma State 5
TCU 5
Utah 5
Boston College 4
BYU 4
Iowa 4
Nebraska 4
Oregon 4
Penn State 4
Tennessee 4
Alabama 3
Cincinnati 3
Georgia Tech 3
Louisville 3
Missouri 3
Notre Dame 3
Pittsburgh 3
Texas A&M 3
Texas Tech 3
Arizona State 2
Arkansas 2
California 2
Hawaii 2
Kansas State 2
Michigan State 2
Mississippi 2
Northwestern 2
Oregon State 2
Stanford 2
UCLA 2
Virginia 2
Washington St. 2
Arizona 1
Ball State 1
Bowling Green 1
Clemson 1
Colorado 1
Connecticut 1
Illinois 1
Kansas 1
Maryland 1
Miami (OH) 1
Minnesota 1
Mississippi State 1
Nevada 1
Purdue 1
Rutgers 1
South Carolina 1
Central Florida 1
USF 1
Wake Forest 1