Opinion: Too many bowls, too little meaning

by Tara Adams

Writer, Irish News Nation

Once upon a time, playing in a bowl game meant a team's season mattered. It meant it had done something worth celebrating. 

Now, it often means teams were available, academically eligible, and willing to play one more game for a sponsor nobody remembers.

College football’s bowl system isn’t just bloated, it’s exposed. But the question isn’t whether it’s broken. It’s why we keep pretending it's meaningful.

1. Too Many Bowls, Too Little Meaning

Bowl eligibility no longer signals success. Six wins, sometimes even losing records, gets a team in. The “reward” has been diluted into participation trophies. How can excellence stand out when mediocrity earns a postseason invitation?

2. Profitability: Who Actually Makes Money?

Bowls claim there's an economic boost for host cities, exposure for programs, and a financial upside for schools.

What’s actually true: Most bowls are not highly profitable. Many rely on conference tie-ins, sponsorship guarantees, and TV contracts just to break even.

Schools often absorb travel and lodging expenses, band and staff costs, and tickets they’re required to purchase but can’t sell.

Sparse attendance at the LABowl at SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles on Dec. 13, 2025

The system makes money at the top, such as TV networks, major bowls, and playoff-adjacent games, while many smaller bowls exist in financial gray areas or outright losses.

Only the top-tier College Football Playoff bowls consistently generate significant direct revenue for schools, while the rest can be neutral or even net-negative financial experiences. 

The CFP and major media contracts generate the lion’s share of postseason revenue, dwarfing what smaller bowls contribute. For example, the CFP’s media deals are worth hundreds of millions annually and are distributed across conferences. 

This dynamic means that schools’ financial benefit from postseason play comes mostly from playoff-related revenue sharing, not from the dozens of minor bowl games themselves.

If bowls were truly profitable across the board, they wouldn’t need so many contractual life rafts.

3. The Players Know the Truth

Considering the loss of bowl importance and prestige, players now view opting out as rational. NFL-bound and transfer portal players understand these exhibition games don’t move the needle.

And when the people risking their bodies don’t believe the game matters, the spectacle collapses.

4. The Playoff Finished the Job

The expanded playoff gives real stakes to a small number of games. Everything else becomes background programming.

Bowls no longer define champions, they fill airtime. The playoff didn’t ruin bowl season. Rather, it revealed how fragile it already was.

5. Corporate Branding Has Replaced Identity

Bowl names change constantly, making tradition nearly impossible when identity is leased annually. Fans don’t bond with logos that expire.

How do you sell nostalgia when the name changes every three years?

Bowls once marked the end of a journey. Now they feel like a contractual obligation — something everyone agrees to honor out of habit, not belief.

College football has changed, but the bowl system didn’t change with it. And clinging to a version of the sport that no longer exists doesn’t preserve tradition, it drains it of meaning.

The sport doesn’t need fewer bowl games because the system is broken. It needs fewer because the illusion that they still matter is finally wearing off.