re: Bama boys staying at the Fountainbleau. Good idea or Bad ?

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Once they arrive, they stay in lodging preselected by the bowls. Under the contracts that create the championship system, bowl organizers arrange the lodging, and the teams pay. No school can negotiate its own lodging costs.

For example, Ohio State University was required to take 150 rooms for at least six nights and pay at least $172 a night per room for its team and coaches to stay in the New Orleans Marriott during this past season's Sugar Bowl. The lodging cost at other bowls sometimes exceeds $300 a night.

The bowls say they are able to negotiate better group rates and guarantee larger blocks of rooms than a school could at the last minute.

The Fiesta Bowl's contract requires its teams to stay in Scottsdale-Paradise Valley hotels, and a recent Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau study shows that during the last Fiesta Bowl, rates there were nearly 85 percent higher than in the rest of the Valley.

Schools say they don't take issue with the accommodations, as it's part of playing in a BCS game.

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