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A new team wants into the College Football Playoff without the wait.
Every year, college football teams begin the season intending to get into the College Football Playoff. Now that the field has expanded to 12, more teams can still reach that goal with one, two, or sometimes three losses.
It feels like we are heading down the road of expanding the field to 16 teams or maybe even someday more. For teams that become bowl-eligible and don’t get into the CFP, there is still the chance to play one more game in one of dozens of bowl games.
This past season, there were 47 bowl games, 36 regular bowls, and 11 that were tied to the 12-team College Football Playoff. That number is shrinking for next year after a third bowl was canceled on Tuesday.
A Third College Bowl Game Was Canceled on Tuesday
In December, it was known that the L.A. Bowl, played in mid-December every year in Los Angeles, was being canceled after this past December’s game. Also getting eliminated was the Bahamas Bowl. On Tuesday, it was announced that Detroit’s Bowl game played at Ford Field has been canceled for next year.
That bowl game, which was held under several different names, had a 29-year run and ended with Northwestern blowing out Central Michigan, 34-7, in December. The final year of the bowl, it was called the GameAbove Sports Bowl. It debuted as the Motor City Bowl in 1997, before changing names to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in 2009, the Quick Lane Bowl in 2014, and then the GameAbove Sports Bowl in 2024.
The game traditionally had a MAC school playing against a Power 4 Conference school. This past year, it was the Big Ten. The ACC has also played in the game. It is the end of an era, and could this be the end of a lot of bowls over time?
Are Bowl Games in Trouble?
Let’s face it, unless it’s a College Football Playoff game, bowl games are not always well attended. Part of the reason is the timing around the holidays, but also, there can be too much travel involved. Certain fanbases do travel to bowl games, and some are well-attended, but for the most part, there are a lot of empty seats at a lot of games.
All the games are on TV, and most have their own time slot; games are held throughout the day around the holidays. There are traditional fans who love to kick back and watch games all day long. However, the attendance numbers can’t be overlooked.
The truth is, the CFP is going to get bigger, and the number of bowl games will go down. What also doesn’t help is the number of opt-outs there are for teams not in the College Football Playoff. Whether it’s for the NFL Draft or the Transfer Portal, players opt out. Rosters look a lot different from what they did in the regular season.
What also doesn’t help is that some teams that are bowl-eligible decide not to play in games. That was the case this past season, and several 5-7 teams accepted bids. That’s not going to move the needle much. Bowl games are in trouble, and it may just be the beginning of more bowls ending sooner rather than later.
Scott Roche Scott Roche covers college football, NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com and has three decades of sports writing, covering everything from college to professional sports. More about Scott Roche
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