Crimson Red Sports

I'm not for 12.  Maybe 6 (with #1 & 2 getting a bye) or 8.  If they expand, the first round games certainly need to be played at a home site.

Eight with the five Power 5 conference champs plus three at large teams wouldn't be so horrible.

That 12-team model would invite the top six conference champions and six at-large teams into the field. There would be no limit on the number of selections from a conference, and no conference would receive an automatic bid.

In this format, the top four conference champions would get byes in the first round and the other eight teams would compete in first-round games on the campuses of the teams ranked Nos. 5-8. Those games would take place in the two weeks following conference championship weekend.

The bowl games with the sponsors will come to nothing. RTR!

The participants: Schools and their leagues earned a collective profit of $448 million from last year’s bowl games, according to NCAA documents obtained by USA TODAY. That’s $561 million in bowl payouts, minus $113 million in expenses associated with participating in the games, including the $25 million they lost on unsold tickets.

Most of that bowl payout money ($465 million) came from only six games: the Cotton, Peach and Fiesta bowls, plus the three games of the Playoff (Rose, Sugar and championship).  That money was shared with leagues and teams that did not participate in those games, such as those in the Bahamas Bowl. For example, $15.4 million of Conference USA’s $18.6 million in bowl payout money came from those top-tier games despite its not having a team in them. Nine teams from Conference USA went to bowl games last year and racked up a combined $5.2 million in expenses, including UAB in the Bahamas, according to NCAA documents. If not for that playoff money, Conference USA would have been $2 million short of covering those expenses.

“It was said very clearly: `Look, we’re going to make significant money available to conferences that are not in the (biggest bowl games),' ” said Wright Waters, executive director of the Football Bowl Association, which advocates for the bowl industry. “The purpose of it is to make sure your student-athletes have a good experience and that your institutions have the benefits of bowl games.”

There are certainly instances of schools, including Alabama and Auburn, spending more on their bowl games than they receive, but it is by choice rather than necessity.  They take lots of staff and dignitaries and make it a lavish trip to reward the team and those involved in small roles.  No telling what is spend on catering alone.   

Pmull, I was going by a documentary I watched several years ago.  My mistake.  Anyways, it said that the expenses that most schools incur for the bowl games was higher than the payout they received for most bowls that weren't played on January 1st.

Well schools should know if they can't make money then don't spend so much. Sounds like poor planning to me. If a man plans to build a house and he don't sit down to make sure he has enough money then most people say he is a fool. RTR!

Consider it like a man taking a vacation.   The schools had enough money to get home and were still paying their mortgage on time.

Same thing said by a Sports Illustrated article a few years back.  It said only 2 football teams made money that year (Bama was one), because the expenses incurred by bowl travel exceeded the bowl payout.  Much wine and dine for the administration (ugh), friends, families, and players staying at nice hotels and eating all meals in rooms (room service charges; high-priced food).