Scott has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter (this email) year-round and a column during football season that's published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.
Scott Davis: What's the Future for Bowl Games?
Wednesday afternoon, I settled into my comfy den chair to watch what was undoubtedly the marquee game of the college bowl season, the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl matchup between Texas and Michigan.
It would have been hard to imagine a better situation for a lifelong college football fan like me: Two of the five winningest college programs in history squaring off on New Year's Eve. Two of the most important, iconic brands in the sport, who'd only faced each other two times ever across more than a century of competition. Those two legendary uniforms on the same field, the maize and blue vs. the burnt orange, the Big 10 vs. the SEC.
Could it get any better than this?
Actually, it could.
Hours after Texas' mildly entertaining 41-27 win in the Citrus Bowl, Miami shocked defending national champion Ohio State in a game that actually mattered – a College Football Playoff game that eliminated the Buckeyes from a chance to repeat.
By New Year's morning, the playoff result was the one fans were buzzing about, and other than some renewed "Hey, maybe Arch Manning starts next year as a Heisman favorite again" chatter, you almost would have forgotten that the Citrus Bowl had even been played.
Michigan vs. Texas slipped into a black hole, from which it will never return.
And just like I did last year, when my South Carolina Gamecocks lost this very same Citrus Bowl, and I found myself feeling largely disconnected from and unaffected by the result, I started reflecting once again on the current state of college football's annual bowl extravaganza.
And after reflecting for a while, I'm ready to go ahead and ask it: Why are these games still being played?
TV is King
Don't worry, I already know the answer.
Despite losing any and all meaning with the advent of the College Football Playoff, bowl games are still being played solely to provide ESPN and other broadcasters with some holiday sports programming. That's it. There is no other reason.
It's not because of tradition, and it's not because fans are clamoring for them: It was hard to miss the thousands of empty seats in the upper deck for the Citrus Bowl in a rare game that pitted two of college football's most legendary programs. Had this game been played during the regular season, it would have sold out any stadium in the country.
What if Michigan and Texas played a rare contest with one another in a neutral-site game in, say, Seattle in early October? It would have been an epic event. GameDay likely would have held its broadcast there. Tickets would have vanished within minutes. Fans from both programs would have filled hotel rooms to attend it.
But on New Year's Eve in Florida, with four big Playoff games coming right behind it, and with fans across the country already knowing that absolutely nothing was at stake in the contest other than pride and the opportunity for the winner to hoist a trophy emblazoned with a snack food, you couldn't give tickets away to this game.
And that's how we arrived at a point where a Michigan-Texas game felt like an NFL preseason game or college basketball's NIT championship – something that existed purely to be televised and which had no other meaning outside of its capacity for being televised.
Despite their profound irrelevance, bowl games still give the networks a better chance to reach viewers than whatever else they'd be filling the timeslot with. At the end of the day, the American people love football. Given a choice between it and anything else, they'll choose football.
Even when it doesn't matter.
Which is why these bowl games will march on into the future, possibly forever, while we continue to wonder exactly who they're for.
What Might Have Been
As a fan of a team that went 4-8 in 2025, I would of course have been happier to watch the South Carolina Gamecocks play in any bowl game over the last few weeks.
Give me the Duke's Mayo Bowl, give me the Music City Bowl…hell, give me the Gasparilla Bowl. Give me anything. Any bowl appearance by South Carolina would have meant that the team finished its season with a winning record and won a few more games.
But there's no reason to pretend that a bowl appearance by the Gamecocks would have made any significant difference in the program's momentum for 2026. What could make a difference for the upcoming season happened over the course of the last few weeks – the hiring of Kendal Briles, the return of LaNorris Sellers and Dylan Stewart – and an appearance in Charlotte to play in the Duke's Mayo Bowl would have had no effect whatsoever on how the Gamecocks look next September.
Would it have been nice to keep playing? I guess so.
But it wouldn't have mattered, not really.
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s, South Carolina's Gator Bowl losses in that decade left me devastated, adrift emotionally, and part of that was certainly because I was young and things matter more when you're young.
But part of it was because bowl games mattered then.
With a goofy system that never really provided a definitive answer about who the best team in the country was each year, regardless of who finished No. 1 in the polls, bowl games represented a chance to win a mini-championship of sorts at the close of the year.
New Year's Day was a national holiday filled with bowl games from morning to night – it felt strangely momentous who hoisted that Sugar Bowl or Rose Bowl trophy, whether the victors won the overall title or not.
Now, non-Playoff teams like Notre Dame are opting to skip the proceedings entirely. The Playoff is where the action is, and all the rest of the action has become superfluous.
And sure, maybe Notre Dame seemed like spoiled sports for taking their ball and going back to South Bend after missing the CFP. But does winning the Pop-Tarts Bowl help Notre Dame move towards winning a national championship next year, or fulfill a lifelong dream for Fighting Irish fans?
It does not.
And more and more players of non-Playoff teams are skipping these bowls, too.
So…shouldn't we ask the question one more time, then?
Why are these games still being played?
Tell me what you think about the college football bowl games by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com. (Please do not reply to this email.)
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