To Funds-Grubbing College Football Bowl Organizers: Call Off the Dogs Prior to You Ruin the Game
Years ago going to a bowl game following normal season play was a big reward and a sign of excellence. Now it has grow to be an absolute joke.
What has brought on this sad state of affairs? I’m glad you asked. The answer is income-grubbing bowl game organizers with dollar signs in their eyes. It is all about creating funds at the expense of respect for the game, the players, and their quest for excellence.
You see there are only 120 significant college football teams in Division 1-A, what the NCAA loves to call FBS (the Football Bowl Subdivision). The NCAA brain trust loves a lot more and a lot more bowl games for the reason that they believe it promotes the sport, and becomes a funds magnet.
It also is killing the sport like a wounded animal operating for its life immediately after getting shot by a sportsman, not realizing that even if it escapes its hunter, it will bleed to death in the approach.
The plethora of bowl games will sooner or later bring about football to loose its appeal as the number a single spectator sport in America. That might sound unthinkable, but I have been covering or watching football for a half century, and can see history repeating itself.
I can try to remember when baseball was king in America, and the powers to be believed it would by no means cease being THE sport of selection. Then basketball became actual popular with rivalries at the pro level. Then football became all the rage. I can bear in mind when pro football games have been not even televised due to a lack of demand. When you reside extended adequate and spend consideration, you see the cycles creating.
Pro baseball produced the error of expanding to more and far more teams, and more and extra playoff games. Fairly quickly the good quality of play was diminished, also substantially cash was involved, and the game became driven a lot more by funds than the quest for excellence.
Baseball club owners put crummy teams on the field and individuals stopped coming. Some big cities would not even support a lousy team. Another sport then became far more well-known.
Here is the rub: We have 120 major teams and now the bowl season has been expanded to 35 games. That signifies 70 of the 120 teams will play in a bowl game. The predicament has grow to be so dire that the NCAA is speaking about waivers due to the fact not enough teams at the moment qualify to play in a bowl game.
The typical nowadays is six wins amongst 12 games – that’s just a stinking .500 record which does not truly merit the reward of a bowl game. Heck, you utilized to have to win 7 games to make it into a bowl game. Now there is speak of letting teams with a five-7 record play in a bowl game mainly because not enough may well qualify with six wins.
This is nonsense. A single pernicious outcome of this is rewarding incompetency.
It reminds me of parents who all but force their kid to play tiny league baseball when the kid could care much less. He then plays 12 games on a team that loses every single game and, as a reward, they give just about every kid on the team a trophy so their feelings are not hurt by their incompetence.
Parents also feel compelled to have photographs taken of their little “stars” and have them put on baseball cards like they are some sort of significant league player. How stupid. The kid learns that being a zero counts for every little thing. He feels like a nothing and is a nothing.
He is denied the blood, sweat and tears of working his butt off to actually develop abilities, find out to become a team player, and get pleasure from some actual, actual life success – a far more worthwhile lesson that will enable him throughout his life.
Final year, 71 teams became bowl-eligible by winning at least six games, and 68 of them played in bowl games. This year, 64 teams are bowl eligible and 20 may be if they win once more. Bowl selections are to be announced on Sunday, Dec. five.
Unless เว็บข่าวบอลออนไลน์ with authority puts their foot down, we may possibly soon see 60 bowl games with every single significant school participating. That may possibly make someone a lot cash, but the games will be terrible and the players will be cheated out of a thing really vital – the feeling of accomplishment that comes from difficult function and sacrifice, and can not be replaced.