In truth, this might not be a big deal in the larger scheme of things. If college football gets shut down by the SEC, Big 12 and ACC, it will be a moot point for many, and understandably so. Yet, I still see some news value in the following reality:
We aren’t seeing — at least not yet — any bowl game cancellations this week.
It was announced two weeks ago that the RedBox Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif. (at Levi’s Stadium) would not be held this year, but no other bowl cancellations have emerged following the Big Ten and Pac-12 decisions to shut down fall football.
This is the current bowl schedule.
The Alamo, Sun, Citrus, Outback, Bahamas, Cactus, Camellia, Mayo, Potato, Los Angeles, LendingTree, Las Vegas, Arizona, Pinstripe, Quick Lane, Independence, Holiday, Hawaii, and Music City Bowls are all unable to maintain their current conference tie-ins due to the shutdowns of the Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC, and Mountain West. One or both conferences in their contractual arrangement won’t be able to play in those 19 bowl games, nearly half of the full bowl lineup of 41 games (minus the RedBox Bowl, the revised current number is 40).
Of those 19 games without at least one conference partner, four bowls — the Quick Lane, Arizona, Los Angeles, and Potato — lack both partners.
Those games haven’t been canceled yet.
Maybe it means nothing, but it’s so odd to see the paralysis from ESPN here. I understand that the coronavirus is calling the shots, and that if the college football regular season is shut down in the other six remaining conferences in the coming weeks (SEC, ACC, Big 12, C-USA, Sun Belt, AAC), the bowl games will go away quite naturally.
So why — you might reasonably ask — am I pointing this out? What is the significance of the fact that several bowls haven’t yet been cancelled?
I realize it’s too late at this point, but what if the bowls had worked with ESPN and the various conferences to engage in horsetrading — the bowl games have long been involved in such a practice — to create nonconference regular-season games and swap them out for bowl games? What if the bowls could have become middlemen or agents in the attempt to offer coordinated testing across conferences and support a more robust infrastructure for playing games while protecting players?
Bowl games have a bunch of fat cats in blazers collecting money for comparatively little work. Why was this part of the larger college football industry so dormant while the sport crumbled? Why is this part of the industry STILL dormant now?
We have seen the college football industry and the college sports hierarchy of leadership react with near-total paralysis to the pandemic. This dormant, paralyzed reality has a lot to do with our pervasive problems — not just in college football and college sports, but across the country.
The bowl games and bowl executives — like school presidents — aren’t centrally to blame for any of what is happening right now. Yet, like the school presidents, the bowls and bowl executives certainly haven’t done much to try to become part of a solution for athletes, coaches, and the American public.
That seems to warrant public comment, don’t you think?