Iowa Orange Bowl 2010 Changing CFB forever?

[CAARHawk]

I heard a BCS league commissioner, didn't get the name or league, last night being interviewed on the radio. He said the commissioners of the different leagues were in deep discussions about changing the schedule for the BCS games.

He claimed the primary reason for the discussions was because Iowa, "a legendary traveling team" only brought 28,000 fans to the Orange Bowl, when they would have normally brought close to 45,000. He said the reason for the showing had to do with scheduling the game after vacation week, when kids were back in school and moms and dads were back to work. We knew this, but it is interesting that it has now become part of the national conversation.

It also made me thankful that I have the type of career where I was still on vacation for that game.

BTW, I live in SEC country.

 

[muskienks]

No kidding. I know of a lot of people who were disappointed that they could not take more time off after just having been off for the Holidays. Add to that the fact that Iowans had already made so many trips to Florida, the disappointment about not going to Arizona and the terrible economy and you had a perfect storm for people staying home. It is amazing that there were as many Iowa fans there as there were.

 

[rodg12]

The BCS bowl schedule last year was ridiculous. Hopefully they do, in fact, change it.

 

[DentalHawk]

I will just tell you guys, that number was gleaned from tickets bought from the Univ. There were FAR more Hawkeye fans in attendance at that game than that number. The date did have an effect and the BCS should reexamine ist's scheduling. It was hard for our group of 20 to go that week!
ToothGuy

 

[pin2win]

they would be idiots not to do this

 

[DuffMan]

There are two problems with this.
1) They all want thier own exclusive prime-time time slots.
2) There are now roughtly 72 New Years Day Bowls so they cant all be around New Years.

It would be cool if they could stage all four BCS games over the second Sat and Sun in January (two per day) with the NC game the following Monday. Unfortunately that gets in the way of the NFL Wild Card round so that's not a possibility.

The bottom line is it's unlikely to change because they make way more money from the TV deal and ad revenue than they do from tickets sales. The 500k to 1mil they take in from selling 10k tickets is chump change.

 

[DexterMorgan]

I think the economy had more to do with it that the scheduling. Would have been over 5K just for me and my wife.

 

[PlanoHawk]

Agree with Duff- and it's such a catch 22 for the bowl, that they want the exclusivity of that TV time slot that attendance can ultimately suffer because the date isn't as feasible for fans to attend.

 

[hwkwyld]

I read somewhere the the BCS committee addressed this last week in their meetings. They conceded that mid-week games were not a great idea they may have schedule two BCS games on the same day.

I'll see if I can find the link.

 

[TecmoSuperHawk]

I'm not sure if that's a compliment that Iowa only brought 28,000 fans or if they were disappointed. Georgia Tech brought less than half that and they were about 800 miles closer.

The BCS games really need to be on New Year's, New Year's Eve (they had BCS type games on New Year's Eve way back during the Bowl Alliance days in the mid 90's) or on a Friday or Saturday. Give fans the chance to go to the games. The ratings will still be there. Especially with the games being on ESPN in the future. ESPN is a destination channel and is on in every bar across America. The ratings will be fine no matter what day they play on.

 

[StatelineHawk]

I agree the scheduling needs to be changed. I spoke to Orange Bowl Exec. Larry Gaitlin(sp) in Miami ant told him the Tues game after New Years is tough on fans. He knew that but have no say on when game is played. Fox controls it. There is no longer any common sense in college athletics.