re: How can they fix the bowls?

All this opting out crap is killing what made college football so special, and that’s a direct result of putting so much emphasis on the playoffs, yet not increasing the field to include more teams in it, which if that’s the direction CFB is going in, then just do away with the bowls entirely and go all playoffs with wild card games and the like. People want something to play for, and since bowls are seen as consolation prizes now, what’s the point of them?

I really hate to see what’s happened to the bowls and CFB in general, but then again, we had to tinker with things, and this is the fallout from that.

Pay the players to play in the games. It’s not hard.

ANY path forward which does NOT include more 'on campus' games, would be B.S. ! To demand fans to trave$ to multiple sites is simply horse-sh$% !

Except for the playoffs, push them to late spring and bill them as spring exhibition games.

Most of them pit teams against each other that haven’t had a lot of success….those are going to be what they are no matter what. Some will match up teams on the come and those will be interesting. The fix is for 8 of them to pit the best 16 teams in the nation in the playoffs. The first round would be some dogs but the second and subsequent games would be as good as it gets. Byes for conference championships is ridiculous because winning the ACC or the Big10 is not the same as winning the SEC. It’s fixable but they gonna insist on continuing the beauty contest and do permanent damage to the second most popular past time in Ameria

Bowls are dead.

Back when "Division 1" was still a thing, Div II and Div III did not get bowls as those Divisions had these things called "playoffs" instead.

With playoffs a thing starting next year in what used to be Div 1, bowls no longer have any reason to exist.

They are dead to real football fans. As long as enough people watch to sell advertising the high number of shitty bowl games will continue.

Just how it is.

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Pay the players a bonus to play in them? Maybe even a performance bonus?

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Why not? Unlike college football in general, bowls have since their inception been nothing but a transparently blatant marketing money grab. They want to survive, they need a better product. A better product could be had by ensuring the best players play. Hell, pay the winning players more than the losing players and let them compete for it.

You don't watch the Sun Bowl? Make that bitch winner take all with a wheelbarrow full of 85 shrink wrapped bricks of cold hard cash, and the ratings will sky rocket. You want a brick of cash? Win the game. Loser takes a bus home.

1. Fewer bowl games

Most are not compelling. To do what I think is necessary, it is going to involve more prudent use of money from ESPN.

2. No conference tie-ins

The conference tie-ins are the chief reason the matchups are not compelling and often repeated in the upper-middle bowls. How many times have Wisconsin or Iowa and LSU played each other? Just roll the bowls under the CFP banner and largely share the revenue between the conferences/teams.

3. The bowls extend NIL contracts to the players

Gift bags and a trip to a local tourist venue is not enough. ESPN needs to seed the bowls with money to better encourage participation. For big time athletes, they can negotiate bigger deals.