For Sale: Everything College Football

First appeared on December 23rd, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

It’s that time of year again. Time to fight crowds like a salmon gone to spawn. Time to locate overpriced gifts before elbowing to the front of the line, knocking down some old lady who’s brandished her checkbook to pay for a single spindle of ribbon. Time to drive two hours in holiday traffic just to sit in a crowded house wearing a turtleneck you had no role in choosing but which makes you so hot you sweat harder than a hog going to sale.


But beyond the crowds and shoppers elbows, far worse than the $5.00 check writer or holiday traffic is the fact that Bowl season is once again upon us. “The most wonderful time of the year” ESPN would have us believe. Words obviously chosen to appease Capital One for having the (insert word of your choosing here) to sponsor the ENTIRE bowl season.

Bowl season, like Christmas, means something different to everyone. To me the majority of Bowl season needs to be jettisoned off like space trash. At its core bowl season is simply a never ending string of mediocre teams playing in overhyped games found in destinations that wouldn’t even be desirable in July, let alone wintertime (all apologies to my relatives in Detroit).

The NCAA says the mission behind college football is to provide youth with the “…motivation to pursue higher education”. Ah yes a fine goal indeed, however apparently in order to accomplish this one requirement is to tap an unlimited spigot of cash first.

Enter the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl and the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl. I know what you’re thinking, these aren’t exactly names that roll off the tongue in the way the Advocare V100 Independence Bowl does. The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl earns the award for longest name of the season (sorry Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl) while the Texas Bowl simply proves once again that, if the state can afford to sponsor a bowl in these economic times, nothing truly is bigger than Texas.

The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl and the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl are proof that somewhere, closeted up and rarely exposed, the NCAA does have some semblance of a conscience. Forgetting the idea of having any conscience whatsoever for a moment, the Godaddy.com Bowl should definitely have the best halftime show while the New Era Pinstripe Bowl will only interest me if the Italian Mafia will be attempting to “whack” the New York Yankees.

If you actually believe College football is about opportunities at higher education, then you probably still believe Santa Claus is real or that anybody in Washington actually cares about you and I. College football, like Washington ironically, is about money. And it’s not just ‘about money’ it’s blatantly about money.

In fact College football is so much about money they should play with green footballs, wear dollar signs on their helmets and install ATM’s in the end zones. Instead of T-shirts, male cheerleaders should shoot Tony Soprano-sized wads of cash into the stands and Cheerleaders should wave pom-poms made of shredded thousand dollar bills.

College football is so much about selling an experience to the highest bidder that it’s disgusting. If all they want is to sell something why don’t they do the respectable thing and run an ad in the Auto Trader or park it in their front yard like everyone else? This being said, I’ll be watching. After all, what’s the alternative? Dominating my 7 year old nephew in Trivial Pursuit for the third straight year or watching home movies of somebody’s trip to Poland?