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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, April 18, 2005

Survival of fittest for bowls

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

What if they held a bowl game and there was nobody to play in it?

What was a joke when the bowl lineup began expanding to sumo-size proportions could have the potential to become reality if all 30 bowl applicants receive licenses this week.

As the number of bowls has mushroomed to 28 — nearly double what it was just 15 years ago — postseason gridlock has become a real concern. So much so that as the NCAA's Postseason Football Licensing subcommittee begins three days of meetings today in Arizona there are questions of a bowl glut if it licenses all the applicants: 28 existing games and two new petitioners.

What it should do, especially with the expansion to a 12-game schedule likely coming in 2006, is let the forces of the marketplace prevail and the numbers sort themselves out. Make the best games prove it — or perish.

Dennis Poppe, NCAA managing director for football, said studies indicate that 51 percent of Division I-A teams reach bowl eligibility in any season. Even if I-A expands to 119 teams for 2005, as Poppe said he expects, that would project 61 bowl-eligible teams for 60 berths if all 30 bowls are licensed.

The bowl directors organization is said to be lobbying against the licensing of the two wannabes — the International Bowl in Toronto and the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego — not relishing more of the already fierce competition for teams, sponsors, television slots and viewers.

Most conference commissioners, of course, support the expansion, hoping their seventh- or eighth-place team will have a warm spot to land. But qualifying teams that far down in the standings are a tough proposition. The Pac-10, for example, couldn't fill its seventh spot last year. And the Southeastern Conference, which has bowl deals eight deep, hasn't been able to make good on its Houston Bowl tie either of the past two seasons.

Meanwhile, some bowls barely need bother opening all their gates or letting in the television cameras. Sixteen of the 25 bowls for which comparisons could be made suffered drops in ratings last year, most by double-figure margins. The Silicon Valley Bowl in San Jose, Calif., enticed just 5,594 through the turnstiles to watch Troy and Northern Illinois.

Even those numbers might have looked good at Aloha Stadium had Hawai'i not won its final three games last season to become bowl eligible, sparing the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl the possibility of an Alabama at Birmingham vs. Akron match.

The NCAA subcommittee has the power to weed out the field by enforcing the rule that requires a turnstile attendance average of 25,000 or 70 percent of stadium capacity over a three-year period. That period, which began in 2003, runs though 2005.

What the committee should do is allow the bowl industry to find its balance through performance. Like the teams they match, let them prove their worth.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.