Among other "years" that it's been, this has been the year of college football whining, with bowls being the latest topic.
OK, folks, yet again, college football's bowl games set an attendance record. And we're not talking about the BCS games.
The Pinstripe and TicketCity bowls finished in the top 15 - of the 35 bowl games - in attendance.
One reason, and there's logic involved: better regional matchups in some cases.
On the other hand, ratings were down. Foxsports.com, in a rare exhibition of exaggeration akin to its news counterpart, reported that "as the fragile state of the bowl system is proven time and again, as demonstrated by freefalling TV ratings and attendance numbers," we won't get a playoff.
Facts be damned. The ratings were down, but "freefalling" is a wee bit much, considering they were up a year ago. And cable - the four BCS games were on ESPN - is not in 100 percent of TV households.
Michael Heistand of USA Today offered this:
"The BCS has withstood years of fan catcalls. But it might someday succumb to this: Fans giving it the thumbs down with their TV remotes.
"ESPN's Auburn-Oregon title game Monday drew 15.3% of U.S. TV households — down 11% from last year's Alabama-Texas game and the lowest title game rating in three years. This followed notable drops for ESPN's other BCS games, which this season aired on cable TV for the first time: The Oklahoma-Connecticut Fiesta Bowl fell 30%, followed by the Stanford-Virginia Tech Orange Bowl (off 22%) and TCU-Wisconsin Rose Bowl (off 14%). Only Ohio State-Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl was up (+25%).
"ESPN notes Auburn-Oregon drew cable TV's biggest-ever audience — which it will remind cable operators the next time it jacks up those operators' subscription fees — but the BCS has also cut off about 16 million U.S. TV households that don't get cable TV.
"ESPN notes those households accounted for 5% of viewers when BCS games were on broadcast networks.
"And BCS ratings faced other drags. Oregon and Auburn come from states with relatively small populations. Stanford and Oklahoma — which might have had a great game if they'd played each other — instead produced less-than-mediagenic blowouts.
"Big names such as Florida, Penn State, Texas and Alabama were absent. And big names can attract eyeballs: Consider that Florida's win vs. Penn State in ABC's Outback Bowl drew a rating up 103% over Auburn's overtime win against Northwestern in that bowl last year on ESPN.
"And maybe, even as NFL TV ratings are on a roll, this just isn't a great year for college football TV box office: ESPN/ABC's 28 non-BCS bowls averaged 2.5% — down 11%. Fan apathy, not fury, could be what finally cuts college football's Gordian knot." People really are starting to stretch for thing, pull out magnifying glasses for the missed brush stroke on a nice painting. It's getting like politics: people rave about what they agree with, whether it's true or not.
Worth noting: The Independence Bowl lost about 10,000 fans from last year's Georgia-Texas A&M game to this year's Georgia Tech-Air Force matchup, a bit of a surprise since Shreveport is a military town.
Worth noting, II: The Liberty lost 11,000 fans from last year's East Carolina-Arkansas game to this year's Georgia-Central Florida, not surprising since Memphis is on the Arkansas border.
Worth noting, III: The GoDaddy.com bowl drew a 1.7 rating and three million watchers for, ahem, Middle Tennessee and Ohio.
If you tee it, they will watch.
Only nine bowl games had less than 40,000 attendance, and none were really a surprise. Not every game works perfectly between location and teams and momentum.
As for general bowl-setup whining, a few things:
A) Yes, only one game has been the one that's mattered. Been that way forever. The next bowl games in the pecking order had teams thinking they deserved The Big Game, and probably didn't.
We've had this bowl system for 300 years, except for the BCS part. Yeah, before that, it was a crapshoot and the bowls dictated who played. Indeed, let's go back to that.
B) Division I-A football is substantially different than I-AA football and Division II football and the NCAA basketball tournament and college baseball and the NFL and everything else out there.
C) The bowl system is never - never say never except for now - ever, ever going away. The coaches won't let it. You'll have a mutiny. Mark Mangino on a fast in protest.
They want those extra practices, and coaches will get what they want. And the bowl system really doesn't now and never has impacted who plays for the national championship(s).
D) Sure, attendance benefited from some geographic advantages. Duh. It's part business, part pleasure. It's supposed to make everybody money, so they'll take regional advantages whenever possible.
It's called "being smart."
Conversely, not every game will have that. Not every game is a five-star blue-ribbon matchup. It happens. Just like not every theory, based in whine, works perfectly every year.
E) No, 6-6 teams shouldn't make a bowl, which means we have too many. But the NCAA doesn't "regulate" postseason I-A football.
First, let the NCAA stop approving bowls. But oh, the NCAA makes money.
F) Legislating the names of bowls would lead to less fun being made of bowls, but names mean money.
G) A third - 12 of 35 - games were decided by single digits, and another six by 10-17 points.
Yes, 17 points is 40 for gamblers, but it's not a blowout. Might be three plays.
Note: there were blowouts during the regular season, and there were close games. Actually, the bowl season usually offers more close games. A year ago, 15 games were single-digit games and eight by 10-17.
H) There needs to be reworking of the financials so schools don't lose money - unless they overdo extravagances and travel parties.
I) Mark Cuban? Really?
J) The regular season impacts the bowl season and interest, and all we got the second half of the season was Camgate and, um, that was about it. Oregon's speedy offense and Camgate. The ACC wasn't much, the SEC was so-so, we paid lip service attention to TCU, and the Boise State Kool-Aid continued to flow.
It wasn't all that sexy a regular season.
So attendance is up a bit, ratings are down - they tend to fluctuate, like, every year - and almost everybody's making money and getting practice time.
Nope, not going away, certainly not after the NCAA wises up and we get a Final Four/Plus One and are finished by Jan. 5 or 6, not Jan. 10.
Yeah, need more coffee.
LOUGHDMOUTHINGS
Belated memo to the Atlanta fans bellyaching about analysts doing their job and objectively looking at teams and basing predictions on said analysis:
To quote Sargent Carter from Gomer Pyle: I can't heeeeaaaaar you.
There were more reasons to pick Green Bay than Atlanta in that game, easily. In fact, here's why and here's why.
Aaron Rodgers had more experience and the Packers had been dominant substantially more than the Falcons, who had extracted victory from the mouthpiece of defeat more often than not.
That's living dangerously, and good teams don't live dangerously.
Nobody said the Packers were going to annihilate the Falcons, people picked them to win. Plenty of others picked the Falcons because of that consistency and fundamental ability.
Don't whine because people are objective and right, as many were in picking the Saints over the Falcons in Atlanta. Logic and reason aren't bad traits to use in looking at a topic. ...
It's been easy for a long time to not take ESPN seriously, and now we can pull against Texas.
ESPN is paying UT $300 million over 20 years to be the school's PR machine/skank. The school gets 82.5 percent, marketer IMG College gets the rest.
Let's just hope Notre Dame and Texas don't play. The networks will fight it out, and we can hope it rains and shorts out the broadcast.
It's not like ESPN isn't already accused of bias. OK, from everybody, since this has become a nation of paranoids. ...
Antonio Cromartie is in a war of words with Tom Brady.
Antonio Cromartie needs to get into a war of words with Trojan.
Cromartie is to substance what some former governors are to arctic geography. He's the clown that has eight kids, three of which are just about the same agae, and was on HBO's "Hard Knocks" showing an inability to remember all of their names.
Great line this fall from the New York Post:
This Jet cornerback is better at conceptions than interceptions. Unfortunately. ...
Picking Green Bay and Pittsburgh. Nope, not livin' on the edge there.
Jay Cutler can go from Sid Luckman to Sid Vicious in a week, and he's off a quality three quarters against Seattle. Aaron Rodgers is substantially more consistent, and the weather is a wash.
The Jets? I like Rex Ryan, but some jets have become arrogantly mouthy rather than humorously mouthy. I like Mark Sanchez, and that the Jets survive without elite quarterback play.
But Pittsburgh is at home, and is just a little steadier.
As was the case last week in Atlanta, either game being decided by more than two touchdowns would be a surprise. ...
Amazing that there were 2,000 empty seats for Atlanta's playoff game against Green Bay, furthering the argument that it's not a great sports city, period.
Selling out is a nice stat, but when you see empty seats - and you can see them when you're there or on TV - it sort of kills that.
There are ways to get rid of tickets without using scalpers, and Atlanta needs to do a better job of marketing those avenues as well as guilting people into not being greedy.
Atlanta will be taken more seriously - and can we stop with the "well, everybody in Atlanta is from somewhere else" excuse? - when there's a waiting list for something, anything.
Of course, it's Atlanta, the city too busy to hate or show up for world series games. ...
When Belmont comes to Mercer in late February for some men's basketball right before the A-Sun tournament, check 'em out.
They've always been good, always played smart and fundamental basketball, but they pounding competition now, and have lost to Vandy and Tennessee in three games by 23 points. That's not far from being undefeated.
They have one of the best coaching staffs around, and really, if you like honest-to-God basketball, are a pure joy to watch. ...
It remains pretty amazing that in states representing the Southeastern Conference, there is junior college football in two states: Georgia and Mississippi.
That's it. Only one in Georgia and 14 in Mississippi.
There are 21 junior colleges in Georgia, 23 in Florida, and - figure this one out - none in Alabama. ...
As Heistand noted above - and he's not alone - the good news with a ratings drop is a smack to the arrogance of ESPN and what it charges cable companies.
Note to dingbats: Yes, your cable company - another part of your life you know nothing about - has to pay those networks to show 'em. And you pay the cable company. Your whole check does not stay in their account. ...
A baziiing from Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:
"In the talent portion of the Miss America pageant last week, Miss Arkansas sang with a ventriloquist dummy. We haven't seen such an impressive talking dummy in Arkansas since Danny Ford was coaching the Razorbacks."
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