Friday, January 02, 2009

A Tipping Point?

Mike Wilbon writes today about his moment of not caring about New Years' Day bowl games:
"The bowl games, for the first time in my life, didn't matter. The people who run college football had succeeded, finally, in killing New Year's Day. Instead of college playoff games commanding our attention, we were left with a bunch of BCS exhibitions that meant absolutely nothing. I didn't know what games were being played at what times, nor in several cases, what day."

He also noted that he and a fair number of his acquaintances bailed on the bowl games to check out the Winter Classic.

My own alma mater played on New Years Day... didn't watch a minute of it.

College football has made the impossible happen -- New Years Day doesn't matter any more, not for football, anyway. Meanwhile, grown men were playing a game -- a game that meant something to their seasons -- like kids on a pond.

College football had better get with the program. They're so worried about regular season games meaning nothing if there is a playoff. In doing so, they now have several dozen bowl games that mean nothing so that there can be a game on a Thursday night next week that "crowns" a Beauty Contest System champion.

Their system is badly broken, and the NHL has gotten something very right.

2 comments:

JP said...

Seems to be a common sentiment today.

The NCAA routinely makes the NHL look like marketing geniuses who really know how to sell a product...

Anonymous said...

I agree as well. This post from BfloBlog.com summed it up well.

http://bfloblog.wnymedia.net/?p=3565