Last season, the addition of five new bowl games brought the total number to 39, including the College Football Championship Game.
Bowls added in 2014 included the Boca Raton Bowl, Miami Beach Bowl, Popeye’s Bahamas Bowl, and Raycom Media Camellia Bowl. The Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit was also added to replace the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl at the same venue.
According to an ESPN report on Wednesday, four more bowls have applied to the NCAA for approval this season.
If approved as expected, there would be a record 43 bowl games, including the College Football Playoff title game, requiring 84 teams to fill each bowl. That would mean 66 percent of the 127 FBS teams would go bowling.
One of the new bowls, the AutoNation Cure Bowl, is already set for Dec. 19 on CBS Sports Network. The game will pit teams from the American and Sun Belt at Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando, Florida.
The three other cities that have applied do not currently host a bowl game. Each city is listed below along with the likely conference matchup according to ESPN.
Austin, Texas
Matchup: American vs. C-USA
Location: TBD (likely Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium)
Tucson, Arizona
Matchup: C-USA vs. MWC
Location: Arizona Stadium
Little Rock, Arkansas
Matchup: American vs. Sun Belt
Location: War Memorial Stadium
What do you think of the possible new additions? One might say there would be too many bowls, but there doesn’t seem to ever be enough college football.
View Comments (37)
Great for the smaller schools but have they not gone to far with ALL of the bowl games? The stands ar 3/4 empty in most of the newer bowls.
My God. We are going to need waivers for 5-7 teams if these get approved. Every team should just have a designated bowl game...
People complain about to many bowls but I enjoy them. Rankings have gone up on bowl games watched but the small bowls (& most bowls) are never sell outs & never will be, nothing wrong with 6-6 teams going to a bowl of course most would disagree.
It seems like the American is adding bowl games just to have them, even though it is only benefitting the Sun Belt and Conference USA. There should be a bowl game between the Mountain West and American. Have the best play the best in years, in years they are not included in the New Year's 6. I'd rather see the best MW team play the best American team, then a 6-6 Pac12 team in Vegas.
Also reports that PAC-12 is trying to get a bowl in Melbourne, Australia for the 2016 season.
http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/03/30/pac-12-discussing-australia-bowl-game-2016-season
Hopefully the conferences are smart enough to get the ticket guarantees lowered significantly.
Hey, now there is hope for Ga. State, Idaho, Indiana, E. Michigan, Kent St., U Mass., Army...
There will never be any hope for Idaho or UMass.
I thought this was an April Fools' joke at first, but then realized no joke was intended. No surprise with the media demand and hype to continue to water down and dilute the product we've grown accustomed to. Whether people or fans attend these games or not is of little concern, the only concern is whether the Networks can sell the advertising minutes. Someday in the near future, I believe, the Advertisers will come to a realization that they are not getting their dollars' worth when buying these minutes and some of these games and events will come crashing down. Personally I'm not a fan of adding to the post season "bowl" games and would prefer pre-season neutral site match-ups that would in turn help define the rankings during the season.
It's a chance for some talented kids to get a vacation and some swag for the holidays. I say let them have their bowl. Not to mention this increases the likelihood of UTSA getting into one. The Austin Bowl would be a great location to play.
bowl games should be for teams with 7-5 record and if you have not enough teams then go with the 6-6 record teams
James, I agree.
I never got why people have to complain about there being too many bowl games. Nobody is forcing you to watch.
Beat it MDawg, this site is for people who care and have an opinion, the reason we are on it. So spare us..... I am all up for evenly matched teams playing against each other especially in college football due simply to the parity that exists in collegiate athletics. But the bowls suck and the games aren't between the most evenly matched and deserving teams. The are a joke in my opinion which I have explained many times on here. Until basically #5 plays #6 and so forth the rankings will not be as accurate as they should be. But they set the rankings then strategically arrange the bowls to get the outcomes that are most favorable to their wants. A joke if you ask me. I care more about how disappointing the match-ups of the bowls are than the OOC regular season games.