What’s next for the bowls? How the non-playoff postseason prepares for the future

For 70 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, the 2024 season will end with a bowl game not tied to the 12-team College Football Playoff. Those 35 games may not get as much attention, but for many of the players, universities, fans and communities involved, they are still a relevant limit for a season that ends shortly after a championship.

That’s what Nick Carparelli says whenever the future viability of these bowls is discussed, and the potential for further expansion of the College Football Playoff in the coming years doesn’t affect his message.

“People love to watch bowl games,” said Carparelli, the executive director of Bowl Season, an advocacy organization for college football’s postseason games. “It’s that unique time of year when people will turn on their televisions on a Wednesday night in December looking for a bowl game. They may not even know which bowl game they will find. They just know they’re going to find one and they’re going to see it.”

The bowls face more challenges than at any time in the history of the sport. The College Football Playoff consumes almost all of the attention directed at the postseason. The opening of the transfer portal in early December allows players with eligibility back to leave their teams and find their 2025 school, while others opt out to avoid risking further injury before entering the NFL Draft. Sun Belt champion Marshall withdrew from the Independence Bowl six days after accepting an invitation after head coach Charles Huff left to take the same job at Southern Miss and dozens of players entered the portal. The Bowl scrambled to find a last-minute replacement and was able to trade nearby Louisiana Tech (5-7) for the Thundering Herd.

It’s a further reminder that bowl games and their directors are no longer the kingpins they once were, pitting eligible schools against each other until securing the bid by agreeing to take on a larger ticket allocation. The new marketplace has forced bowls to change the way they do business. Some try to appeal to the audience with a catchy slogan or memorable mascot, while others have doubled down on the tradition. Both approaches are critical pivots to not only staying relevant, but staying in business.

“I can’t talk two years from now, ’26 and beyond, how many games you can support with the economy of the future,” said Florida Citrus Sports CEO Steve Hogan, whose organization operates the Citrus and Pop-Tie bowls. “I strongly believe there are still postseason games that are needed and will be supported and will be wanted. I just don’t know how many.”

Some fans believe there are too many bowls, yet the ratings belie this undercurrent of weariness. During the 2023-24 men’s and women’s college basketball seasons, only two games generated more than 2 million viewers through the first week of February, according to figures compiled by Sports Media Watch.

Meanwhile, in the 2023-24 college football season, 25 non-playoff bowl games generated more than 2 million viewers and 15 exceeded 3 million. The Citrus Bowl, in which Tennessee routed Iowa 35-0, drew 6.8 million viewers, the highest among the non-CFP bowls. The Celtics-Lakers Christmas Day 2023 game, the NBA’s highest-rated game of the ’23-24 regular season, generated 5.01 million viewers, and only six regular-season NBA games topped 3 million.

“These ratings are really strong at the start and continue to improve,” Hogan said. “It fits in between Playoff games and NFL games and everything else. There’s no question that people are consuming it, want to consume it, will continue to consume it, but it still has to be viable for everybody.”

Television will again play a role in the bowl system’s long-term future. Of the 41 CFP and bowl games, 38 appear on the ESPN family of networks, and 17 bowls are owned by ESPN Events. Fox and CBS each broadcast a bowl on television. Those networks, along with NBC, just finished their second season divvying up the Big Ten’s broadcast rights and could have incentives to bid for additional bowl games when current contracts expire after the 2025-26 season.

Another adjustment Carparelli has suggested is for an upper tier of bowls to merge and draw from a pool of skilled non-playoff teams. If the top six bowls in non-CFP payouts (Citrus, Alamo, ReliaQuest, Holiday, Texas, Pop-Tarts) chose from the top 12 available non-CFP teams instead of being bound to invite teams from their affiliated conferences , they could create many compelling matchups. For example, Colorado and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter could face Alabama. Or Iowa State and Missouri could renew their dormant Telephone Trophy rivalry. Or a Group of 5 conference champion such as Army (11-2) could find itself in an upper-level bowl.

As it stands, the conference commitments could open the door to imbalance. The Big Ten and SEC have tie-ins with the Citrus and ReliaQuest bowls, and the number of CFP teams representing those two conferences could wreak havoc on matchups down the selection ladder. Two years ago, for example, Citrus picked Big Ten West Division champion Purdue (8-5) to face LSU (9-3). In the weeks that followed, the Boilermakers lost coach Jeff Brohm and several players left for the transfer portal or the NFL Draft. The Tigers won 63-7.

“We’d like to see more flexibility in the selection process after the 12 teams are chosen for the CFP. Sometimes the strict conference affiliations with bowl games limit putting together the best matchups. So if you took the next group of ranked teams that have had successful seasons and placing them and matching them up against each other in the next level of bowl play, we could really create some exciting matchups that people will look forward to.”

However, some may balk at that suggestion. For example, the Citrus has selected the top Big Ten and SEC team outside of the highest structure — the CFP, or the previous Bowl Championship Series and Bowl Coalition — since 1993. Prior to 2014, when the CFP allowed more than two teams from each conference to participate in New Year’s Six bowls, Citrus often welcomed top-10 teams and once had a top-5 matchup.

The Big Ten and SEC regularly command the highest television ratings in sports, and that’s doubly true when they compete against each other. This year, the Citrus Bowl chose no. 20 Illinois (9-3) of the Big Ten and no. 15 South Carolina (9-3) from the SEC. The Tampa-based ReliaQuest Bowl, which picks the No. 2 seed among the Big Ten bowls and is usually the most coveted landing spot among SEC teams after the Citrus, picked the No. 13 Alabama (9-3) against unranked Michigan (7-5).

“It’s a relationship business,” Hogan said. “We think we’ve got a great game, more than 30 years with the Southeastern Conference and with the Big Ten, the oldest relationships they have in the postseason outside of the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, respectively. And we’re proud of that.”

In addition to television ratings, competitive balance and geography also factor into bowls’ feasibility. For the second time in three years, Arkansas will compete in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. For both parties, the attraction is mutual. Memphis is just east of Arkansas via a long bridge over the Mississippi River, and plenty of Razorback alums live in the metro area. It’s an easy drive for fans across the state, which means something after a 6-6 regular season; if Arkansas’ bowl trip required a flight, fans may decline the chance to attend.

“We had such a great experience the last time we were there,” Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said. “We can get some people there and it’s close to our kids and we can bus up there, which we want, and have a good time and have a lot of familiar faces in the crowd.

“College athletics is still about moms and dads coming to the games, watching their sons play, and we think that’s going to happen.”

Bowl officials view their participants in a similar light: While they like variance, safety is even more important. With Arkansas, the Liberty Bowl gets a regional anchor team. The Razorbacks’ opponent, Texas Tech, has a motivated fan base. Arkansas and Texas Tech competed against each other in the Southwest Conference from 1957 to 1991, and Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire grew up in Texarkana, Texas.

“The families can come here and it’s not like they have to pay thousands of dollars to fly across the country,” Liberty Bowl CEO Steve Ehrhart said. “The matchup, I think, is also an important factor, because having a good, close game will drive your television as much as anything else.”

This year marks the 66th edition of the Liberty Bowl, which ranks seventh in longevity among postseason games. Its history includes hosting Bear Bryant’s final game as Alabama’s coach in 1982. It is one of several bowls with a resonant patriotic theme, and the Liberty Bowl prominently features some 150 local sponsors (including title sponsor AutoZone).

“Like to borrow that SEC phrase, it just means more to our community because we don’t have a professional football team,” Ehrhart said. “The community really needs to be involved and embrace the whole mission.”

Meanwhile, Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte ends its game with a mayonnaise dump on the winning coach or his designee. The Pop-Tarts Bowl features an edible mascot whose flavor is chosen by the winning team’s MVP, and its trophy is a giant toaster. As games lean into what makes them unique, college football’s patchwork postseason will keep working to adapt to whatever the future holds.

“The funny thing about these brands, I just think that’s where we are, and that’s where we are, we should be, and that’s where we’re going in the future,” Hogan said. “All of this adds up to a successful bowl season.”

(Photo: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)