Profile
Photos
Comments
From there it was an easy jump to football, with Bud Wilkinson and the Sooners building an unbelievable 47-game-winning streak while bringing back to Oklahoma two national championships.
Every since those days, I have loved college football.  I love the pageantry; I love the bands; I love the fans;I love the traditions, and I love the players. But, I am so sick of the whole bowl situation in college football that I finally just have to vent.Â
We now have 34 bowls; that's right! 34!!! At least 30 of them would be more aptly named "The Lysol Toilet Bowls."
Some cities, like San Diego, actually have TWO!!!--the Holiday Bowl and The Poinsettia Bowl. And now we have bowls in such places as Boise, Idaho, and Washington D.C. I thought part of the rationale was to go somewhere WARM!!!
Here's what irritates me the most, though, And it's all the result of the idiotic BCS. Now, we get a couple of teams like Boise State and TCU--neither BCS schools--playing a yawner in the Fiesta Bowl, trying to prove who has the worst team that didn't lose a game in the regular season. Never mind that their conference schedule included teams only slightly better than "Ned and The Third Grade Readers"!
Thanks to the BCS, which decided that one major bowl each year would match the two best teams, according to THEIR supposedly superior ranking system, the non-BCS schools sued, alleging that scenario eliminated one bowl in which they otherwise might get to play. Howgwash!! Who remembers the last time a school from a minor conference played in a major bowl before the BCS? But, to be "politically correct," the BCS completely restructured the whole Bowl scenario, taking the National Championship game realistically out of the whole Bowl picture. Then the greedy corporate sponsors want their game to be the ONLY game of a given time slot. So, what do we get. We get absolutely one major game--the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. Thank you, Rose Bowl, for not buckling to these computer nerds.
These idiot sponsors may have thought it was a good idea to play the Orange Bowl on Tuesday and the National Championship game on Thursday! Insane!! People have to work. They can't stay up til midnight to watch bowl games that should have already been played.
But here's the real kicker. Most of the money that these bowls generate in profit is tax exempt. Â Bet you didn't know that.
It all started with just ONE bowl game--- the Rose Bowl.  It was a classic East-West battle, and was the only bowl game held outside of the South until 1971.
Paired with the beautiful early morning parade, it has been part of every New Year’s Day that I can remember. Part of college football is tradition. At least, the Rose Bowl committee realizes that even if the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta don't.
In 1933, the first Orange Bowl game was played. Its purpose was to draw attention to the unknown city of Miami and help build a tourism
industry. Next came the Sugar Bowl (1935, New Orleans), the Sun Bowl (1936, El Paso), the Cotton Bowl (1937, Dallas), and the Gator Bowl (1946, Jacksonville, all played on New Year's Day.
The associations behind these bowl games had altruistic beginnings. Most benefited charities, many which were formed to help people in the wake of the Great Depression. Today they still have 501(c)(3) status but their exempt purpose is fuzzier, bringing economic impact to a particular area. Most current bowls still contribute a large portion of revenue to worthy causes. For example, the Gator Bowl gives 75% of game revenue to support educational pursuits in Jacksonville. Of course they do, and I’m sure the money is put to good use. But if hard truth be told, I’ll bet that much of the money given to charity is a payout to preserve their nonprofit status, to keep the IRS at bay.
The late 1950s saw a proliferation of new bowl games hoping to make money from television coverage. The first bowl game to sell corporate naming rights was the US F&G Sugar Bowl in 1988. The move generated an adverse reaction from the public. No matter, it has now become commonplace I personally loathe each and every corporation that co-opts tradition in the name of profit.
Naming rights are even sold for half-time reports. The most memorable was an attempt to reach out to female viewers, the Stayfree Maxi-pad Half-time Report. At least that one made me laugh.Â
I suppose I should be more understanding. With competition from the new bandwagon bowl games, which offer team payouts in the millions, the old timers have to play by the same rules.
After all, bowls can’t make money if the teams don’t show up. And the impoverished state-sponsored universities aren’t willing to be pawns in someone else’s money-maker.
As with so many of our cherished cultural traditions, all has been reduced to greed. Corporate greed, state-supported university greed, individual greed.
It’s said that money is the root of all evil. I don’t think so. Money can do much good as the original intent of college bowl series illustrates. The Lockheed Martin Holy Bible actually says that the love of money is the root of all evil. The perversion of college bowls is but a small and insignificant example of what’s become a global truth.
The names have been changed to expose the guilty:
Rose Bowl presented by Citi
FedEx Orange Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Brut Sun Bowl
AT & T Cotton Bowl
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl
By Marie WaldenÂ
NOT MY TRIBEÂ - 1/01/2008 3:47PM MDTThanks To Marie Walden at :
https://notmytribe.com/2008/the-lysol-toilet-bowl-game-82379.html
/p>