Let's Go Bowling

I've never been a college sports enthusiast. I don't follow March Madness or the BCS. It's probably partly due to the fact that the college I attended was never in the national sports spotlight, so there's no particular loyalty to any school that is.

But I am cognizant enough to be able to sense the changes that have taken place over the decades with regard to college competition, especially football.

Back in the time when New Year's Day seemed a bit more of a celebration than it does now - my mother would always make pea soup, and my grandparents would always visit, plus the Tournament of Roses Parade - I recall college football bowl games as being part of the festivities. Now this is all by memory, so I can't make any statements of accuracy, but there used to be a few bowl games, maybe not all on New Year's Day. But I remember the Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and the biggest one of all, the Rose Bowl.

I believe my grandfather may have watched a bowl game or two, so I caught parts of them at least. I wasn't a college football fan then, and I'm still not one. But I sensed that these football games were pretty special events.

Now there are too many bowl games to remember.

This is what I found on the internet:

Gildan New Mexico Bowl
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl
S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl
Little Caesars Bowl
Belk Bowl
Military Bowl
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl
Champs Sports Bowl
Valero Alamo Bowl
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
New Era Pinstripe Bowl
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
Insight Bowl
Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl
Hyundai Sun Bowl
AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Chick-fil-A Bowl
TicketCity Bowl
Outback Bowl
Capital One Bowl
Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl
Rose Bowl
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Discover Orange Bowl
AT&T Cotton Bowl
BBVA Compass Bowl
GoDaddy.com Bowl
Allstate BCS National Championship Game

They aren't held on New Year's Day this year; they are spread out over December and January.

Apparently, there's a lot of money in these bowl games if one can tell from all the corporate sponsorship in this list. I'm all for making money, but it seems to me that the hunt for the almighty dollar always sacrifices something. In this case, it has made the special very ordinary. Or so it seems to me.

I suppose I'm not really lamenting anything here as I don't follow any of this beyond the headlines. However, as a watcher of trends, I wanted to make note that I caught this particular one.