The 2015 Taxslayer (Gator) Bowl: Another dog game

[pierre]

It isn't even a "Tier 2" bowl any longer.

[fsquid]

bowl games were created to fill hotel rooms during a slow season.  Seems like it is still accomplishing that.

[I-10east]

Why crowds are less now? Answer is the quality of teams. We now have 6-6 teams playing versus 9-3 and 10-2 teams.

Orange Bowl-
Miss St (9-3) vs GA Tech (10-3)
Attendance: 58,211

Belk Bowl-
Georgia (9-3) vs Louisville (8-4)
Attendance: 45,671

Outback Bowl-
Wisconsin (10-3) vs Auburn (7-5)
Attendance: 44,023

Russell Athletic Bowl (Orlando)-
Clemson (10-2) vs Oklahoma (7-5)
Attendance: 40,071

Citrus Bowl-
Missouri (10-3) vs Minnesota (7-5)
Attendance: 48,624

This is what I've been telling yall over and over and over again, the bowls are dying rapidly!!! This isn't year 2000 anymore, back when meaningless bowls had good attendance. There is really 'three tiers' these days; The playoffs, the Cotton Bowl/Peach Bowl/Fiesta Bowl, and basically everybody else. The bowls are going bust in dot.com-esque fashion! These 10-3 teams often underachieved from Cotton Bowl-tier status, and were put into a lower bowl that their fans will not travel to. If what I said isn't eye opening to the people that still think it's the golden age of the bowl games, then I don't know what else to say...

[mtraininjax]

With over 50 bowl games, and you only needing to be 6-6, all the bowl system does is put money into a local economy, ESPN and the conferences. There was a time when a bowl game was a reward, now its a joke. And those ticket mandates that the teams sell tickets in a "bowl allotment", is the cruelest joke of all. Few teams are going to sell their allotment, because there is no need to buy a full price ticket when you can get them on the secondary market at a far lower price. Tickets for the Orange Bowl were going for $4 in the upper deck. Our Club tickets were supposedly $200 and we picked them up for $30 a piece and a parking pass. Going to a bowl game 27 seasons in a row sounds nice, until you see that you only need to be mediocre at worst to get into one.

[tufsu1]

With over 50 bowl games

by 50, you of course mean 38.

As to advantages of the bowl games...the teams playing in them get 3 extra weeks of practice...and that is often very helpful (see UF) in starting to look at next year.

And finally to be clear....FSU has been to 33 straight bow games