FanPost

The SEC and Bowl Contracts

Ed.  Bumped from the FanPosts. 

The end of the 2009 football season also brings all current bowl contracts to an end, which means you'll likely see stories on negotiations sprinkled in the news throughout football season. The biggest story to date has been that of the Gator Bowl trying to claw its way into the SEC lineup. Below you'll get a small dose of what will probably happen with more of what I'd like to see.

The Capital One Bowl (Citrus for you old timers) holds all the cards right now. They have the biggest payout and best non-BCS game out there. If possible, the SEC and Big Ten are going to renew their contracts, with reservations. The Citrus Bowl stadium is dying and is poorly located in Orlando. If both conferences resign for four more years, you can bet that it will be the last time unless the stadium gets major renovations or a new one is built. If neither is done, it would create a major shift in the bowl landscape come contract time in 2013. 

If the SEC resigns with the Capital One Bowl, everything will probably fall into place the same way it is now. Getting into the Gator Bowl would be great for the SEC, replacing the Independence, Liberty or Papajohns.com Bowl. However the Capital One has a clause in its contract that no SEC or Big Ten team can play at the same time as it's game is going on, an effort to boost TV ratings. The Gator and Capital One play at the same time, so something would have to give.

What would I like to see? Give the Cotton Bowl the first choice after the BCS. It's tradition is by far the best among all non-BCS bowl games and it now has a sparkling $1 Billion stadium to play in thanks to Jerry Jones. It seems only logical that the SEC's No. 2 should play the Big 12's No. 2 team, they are the two best conferences.

After that, I wouldn't make too many changes. I've never been a big fan of the Outback Bowl, so I wouldn't mind bumping the Peach or Music City Bowl up a slot or two, Nashville is a city for a game and New Year's Eve there is a blast!

As a fan, I'd love it if the SEC matched up with the Pac 10 for a game each year also. I get sick of watching us play three Big 10 teams a year. I would absolutely go see LSU take on UCLA or someone else from the left coast in, say, the Sun Bowl. Like the Cotton, it's another game with solid tradition. Wait, check that, I don't want to go to El Paso. How about the Insight Bowl, only we go back to calling it the Copper Bowl. Phoenix would be fantastic in late December. Or the Las Vegas Bowl, anything to go to Vegas.

That said, my line up would look as follows (obviously some bowls would have to step up their payout):

No. 1 - Sugar
No. 2 - Cotton
No. 3 - Capital One
No. 4 - Copper (sorry Insight)
No. 5 - Peach
No. 6 - Music City
No. 7 - Outback
No. 8 - Liberty
No. 9 - PapaJohns.com (yeah, I live in Birmingham. If we could ever get that dome they keep talking about, I'd move this up).

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