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Topic: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Topic: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

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Bcat2
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Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/26/2016 7:21:07 PM

http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Pat-Fitzgerald-If-you...

"Some media and fans have compared so many bowl games to a “participation trophy,” but it’s really another opportunity to compete, including practices and strength training. It’s also a free trip for many players who may not be able to make such a trip otherwise. From a fan perspective, you get to watch more football, so what's the issue?

“There is no such thing as a meaningless game. You’re only guaranteed X amount of games in college. Injury and everything are a major part of that,” Fitzgerald said. “For us to be in the postseason, to be in Yankee Stadium and play in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against an outstanding opponent, this is a great opportunity for our program, and I know our guys are excited about it.”

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

cc-cat
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/26/2016 7:37:51 PM

Interesting points. And from the only view that really matters: coach and players.

Recovering Journalist
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/26/2016 7:56:38 PM

cc-cat wrote:

Interesting points. And from the only view that really matters: coach and players.

How is it that they're the only view that matters? The empty stadiums and flaccid rating suggest fans have a view too. These bowls of .500 or even losing teams are just there to feed the rapacious maw of ESPN and a handful of bowl organizers. If bowls were something that fewer than half of all teams did, they might all have some meaning. When 6-7 Mississippi State gets lucky to reach .500 by squeaking past Fiami at 11 a.m. on Boxing Day, bowls just may have jumped the shark.

Alan Swank
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/26/2016 8:22:58 PM

I'm a fan of football but who is Pat Fitzgerald? Talking about drinking the cool aid to have a job. Classic case of self preservation.

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/26/2016 10:04:16 PM

Bcat2 wrote:

What a surprise...this poster follows the most hoary, traditional viewpoint possible.

Where's the band?!
WHERE"S THE BAND?!

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GoCats105
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/27/2016 8:40:54 AM

Alan Swank wrote:

I'm a fan of football but who is Pat Fitzgerald? Talking about drinking the cool aid to have a job. Classic case of self preservation.

Coach of Northwestern.

*A team that hasn't been to a Rose Bowl since 1995.

cc-cat
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/27/2016 12:07:05 PM

cc-cat wrote:

Interesting points. And from the only view that really matters: coach and players.

Recovering Journalist wrote:

How is it that they're the only view that matters? The empty stadiums and flaccid rating suggest fans have a view too.

Fans are actually becoming secondary.

Recovering Journalist wrote:

These bowls of .500 or even losing teams are just there to feed the rapacious maw of ESPN and a handful of bowl organizers.

Hammer meets nail. It is all about ESPN and their need to fill content. Live sports are better for them than yet another "Around the Horn" - one of the reasons they continue to shed "personalities." So they create bowls. 13 of the 42 bowls are now owned and operated by ESPN - double over the past few years - expect that to continue to grow. All but 4 (of the 42) are broadcast on either ESPN or ABC. ESPN could care less about butts in seats. They need the content - and the content does just fine by them. I have not seen the overnights for last week's game. I do know the last time we played Troy we drew a 1.3 rating. Bad? Yes the lowest rating for any bowl that year. YET - higher than ESPN averages for their Sunday night baseball. Part of a $5.6 BILLION 8 year contract with MLB. A few hundred thousand on a bowl? A bargain. Having the list of bowls also helps in ad sales as ESPN bundles all the bowls together - they do not sell only the Dollar General game.

So ESPN needs the content - therefore they need the teams on the field. So as long as ADs/Coaches/players say let's play, there will be the long list of bowl games. And per Alan - why would a coach or AD decline? Bowls mean bonuses. What about at the League commissioner level? Even more bonus money. And ESPN uses its clout to leverage leagues and schools to play by tying into other contracts. MAC is prime example. ESPN needs content - Hello MACAction on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Not surprising that MAC teams played in 3 of the ESPN owned bowls this year and often play in the Potato (ESPN owned) and were rumored to play in the Boca Raton bowl. Schools and leagues will not decline a bowl bid for fear of pissing off ESPN.

But if fans don't attend the games, they will shut down...right? The ESPN money helps alleviate that issue. Remember, even the ESPN bowls have sponsors "Popeye's Bahamas Bowl" - - who use the game for PR, marketing and corporate perks - e.g., Popeye franchisees were taken to the game by corporate. so you now have two pockets filling the wallet of the local group. Also know that the local "bowl committee" is often run by pretty powerful movers and shakers in the community, so they often get what they want (and money).

So who wins?
ESPN wins. Coaches/ADs/conference leaders win. Sponsors win because ESPN offsets costs. Local leaders win...follow that money.

Who loses?
local economies that don't draw in money as fans stay away (but remember local civic leaders do win), and the team's fans that either get gouged on travel costs, or simply tire of playing in same old same old.

Undecided?
The players. Player play, that is what they do. For the reasons highlighted by Fitzgerald, the players want to play. A few are starting to say no. Of course that was reacted to with scorn by most around the country and on this board.

L.C.
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/27/2016 1:54:46 PM

cc-cat covered my thoughts nicely. I have nothing to add.

Last Edited: 12/27/2016 1:58:06 PM by L.C.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus

rpbobcat
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/27/2016 2:28:19 PM

To tie this in to the NFL ratings thread.

T.V. controls college and professional sports.

Great example is the NFL "Flex" schedule.

My family has had season tickets for the Giants since 1976.

Beginning of the year you got your tickets and made your plans accordingly.

Now the kickoff time for 5 of the 8 home games is subject to change.

Plus,under Flex,you can get only 1 week's notice of the time change.

Since the Giants homes games are sold out,they don't care what gets done to the home schedule.Their money is in the bank.

Same with bowls.
If ESPN and a sponsor is paying the bills,why not have a bunch of bowl games.

One additional positive for appearing in any televised bowl is that its a 3+ hour commercial for you school.

Recovering Journalist
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/27/2016 4:20:19 PM

rpbobcat wrote:

If ESPN and a sponsor is paying the bills,why not have a bunch of bowl games.

Schools and conferences actually pay the bills when it comes to travel and expenses, and almost every time a MAC school loses money. The conference works to cover gaps, but that just means less money to return to all members. Even at that, many schools lose money directly. As an example, Western paid almost half a million net to lose in front of a handful of their shivering fans in Idaho last year.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/2015/05/0... /

.
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 9:31:09 AM

One man's opinion: Live sports content is where online advertising was in the early 2000s. A lot of money being poured into a product that ultimately reaches relatively few people. Someday soon, it will become clear that a lot fewer eyeballs are watching intently than originally imagined and there are cheaper, more effective ways to market and the system will implode.

Disney has been battening the hatches for a couple years now. Any system that delivers D2 college basketball and professional drone racing to my house for free with repetitive placeholder ads is one doomed to fail. Seriously. They've overextended themselves. The gigantic events are watched, but they've tied a bunch of dead weight onto them and overpaid for the rights. (Sadly, I believe the MAC is one of those dead weights they paid tens of millions of dollars for. That money is going to be disappearing soon.)

We've already started to see Disney push the on-air personalities it hasn't cast off to be more active with advertising campaigns to add value. That means the advertisers aren't getting enough bang for the buck already. We're going to start to see more and more concessions to the advertisers in terms of integrating their products into the content. It's a bad road to go down. They're little by little devaluing their own advertising space and brand. They're being held ransom by their own advertisers. We've watched it happen in newspapers and in radio. It's finally reached the television screen.

I know this all sounds amateurish (and it is), but I really believe advertising is becoming less and less effective as it ages, as we all become more and more attuned to the tricks and gimmicks.

Then again, not to go all alarmist Alvin Toffler or anything, I think we're living in a sports bubble that formed in the 1980s and is about to burst. We poured the same amount of dedication, hard work and thought into sports over the past 40 years that we used to save for the space program, warfare, good governance, industrialization. We've literally wasted a lot of the world's skills on managing sports franchises. Look, I'm a post-modernist and believe we can create and build value based on anything and that it's the inherent right of every human being to do just that, but we can't keep using 100 percent of our finest, rarest resource — our attention spans — on games, whether they be sports, video games or social media. If we do, reality will create a wall we'll speed headlong into.

Last Edited: 12/28/2016 10:04:03 AM by .

Bcat2
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 9:47:16 AM

Bruce Feldman Verified account
‏@BruceFeldmanCFB

Why are there so many bowl games? Over 2.5 million people watched the Ohio-Troy bowl game the other night:

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

L.C.
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 10:36:24 AM

Bcat2 wrote:

Bruce Feldman Verified account
&#mailto:8207;@BruceFeldmanCFB

Why are there so many bowl games? Over 2.5 million people watched the Ohio-Troy bowl game the other night:

I guess this explains why it was to Ohio's advantage to be clearly the 2d best team in the MAC, and to get to the Dollar General Bowl. The time slot meant a lot of eyeballs, and that meant a lot of exposure for the University.

Brian Smith wrote:

...We've literally wasted a lot of the world's skills on managing sports franchises. Look, I'm a post-modernist and believe we can create and build value based on anything and that it's the inherent right of every human being to do just that, but we can't keep using 100 percent of our finest, rarest resource — our attention spans — on games, whether they be sports, video games or social media. If we do, reality will create a wall we'll speed headlong into.

Nice thought provoking discussion, Brian. I have mixed emotions about this, though. On the one hand, you're right - we could accomplish a lot in the time we spend on sports and/or video games. On the other hand, as robots take over more and more things (e.g. driverless trucks to replace the current human drivers, robots to replace order takers and cooks in fast food restaurants as minimum wages rise, increasingly robotized factories, etc), perhaps we will go the other way, and turn more and more to sports to make us feel relevant.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus

cc-cat
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 11:02:54 AM

Brian Smith wrote:

...but we can't keep using 100 percent of our finest, rarest resource — our attention spans — on games, whether they be sports, video games or social media. If we do, reality will create a wall we'll speed headlong into.

Sliding a bit off topic

but Good post...interesting thoughts. I highlighted the above, because I think it is the merger of these three elements that will be the next revolution in sports and viewing (and revenue). My opinion: With the continuing advancements in virtual reality, in the next 20-25 years you will be able to "go" to a game virtually. You will sit on your couch and buy a ticket for the game. Your friend in Athens can get the ticket next to you. Your buddy in LA on the other side. The visual presentation will be as if you are there with each other. Even able to look at your friends and interact - and feed off the actual stadium noise.

We will all be able to go to the Ohio bowl game (perhaps to celebrate our MACC - lol) and will sit together and be able to look each other in the eye and talk, yell, cheer. Replacing each watching ESPN/ESPN3/Stretch,etc. and typing in the chat area.

You also brought up Disney - which has all the pieces to bring it together - and it reflects the next generation of their mission, "to create family fun."

Last Edited: 12/28/2016 11:03:35 AM by cc-cat

The Optimist
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 11:10:02 AM

Recovering Journalist wrote:

cc-cat wrote:

Interesting points. And from the only view that really matters: coach and players.

The empty stadiums and flaccid rating suggest fans have a view too.

#1 Dollar General Bowl:
Attendance: 32,377
TV Views: 2.5 Million

#2 Frozen:
Attendance: 0
TV Views: 2.4 Million

I've seen crazier things happen.

Jeff McKinney
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 11:20:30 AM

Brian Smith: really good post. And some other good ones on this thread, too.

.
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/28/2016 11:32:59 AM

cc-cat wrote:

Brian Smith wrote:

Really interesting stuff! Made me think about an element I hadn't considered. Thanks!

allen
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 12:43:30 AM

Jake Butt is the latest bowl game casually. He may have tore an acl or mcl, this is very unfortunate for him.

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

BillyTheCat
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 8:42:19 AM

allen wrote:

Jake Butt is the latest bowl game casually. He may have tore an acl or mcl, this is very unfortunate for him.

On the same level when a kid verbals to a college in HS he should probably just sit out the rest of the season to guard against injury and losing his scholarship.

And it's amazing this conversation is going on and yet the same people want to see a larger playoff equaling playing more games.

allen
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 9:47:03 AM

No if college football wants to use these players as show puppies, then they need to do more to protect them. They need to create a compensation package for people like Butt who are putting on a show in a meaningless bowl game that get injured and lose millions or respect the players decision to skip the bowl game. Yelling bully from the bully pulpit does nothing.

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

Mike Johnson
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 10:32:24 AM

Reading this thead's exchange, a couple of thoughts popped into this aging mind.

* Why should a young person join the armed services? After all, he or she could get shot - or worse.

* Color me old school. With Stanford as an alma mater notwithstanding, I found myself cringing at McCaffrey's decision to quit the team before its bowl. His teammates applauding his choice didn't alter my thinking. I wonder if, in years to come, it might alter theirs.

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allen
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 11:40:50 AM

You get paid to be in the service and you volunteer to defend your country and if you get shot you will get paid for life. If you get killed in action, your family gets a stipend. College football players gets nothing, while the schools make millions. If a kid breaks his neck playing college football, there will be no stipend, there will be social security and invites to come to future games.

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

Bcat2
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 12:22:56 PM

allen wrote:

allen. Were we at the qualification range the above would not score Expert, nor Sharpshooter, not even Marksman referred to as a Bolo Badge.

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men." JFK

allen
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 1:08:27 PM

Bcat2 wrote:

allen wrote:

allen. Were we at the qualification range the above would not score Expert, nor Sharpshooter, not even Marksman referred to as a Bolo Badge.

I WAS IN THE SERVICE and I was a sharpshooter. I also worked for the VA helping resolve veterans claims. Read CFR part 4 in will tell you all about VA compensation. In order to be in the service you have to qualify every year as a marksman. Bolo means be on look out, so when in Afghanistan we got be on look out (BOLO) reports for vehicles and individuals. You know the military like you know football.

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. Woody Hayes

Monroe Slavin
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RE: Pat Fitzgerald on Bowls

Posted: 12/31/2016 2:54:55 PM

Not sure this point has been specifically made...Live attendance is certainly nice to have. The excitement of a big and/or fun game (Army-Navy) drawing a big live crowd is great. But so long as tv viewership is big, live attendance is not nearly as meaningful as it used to be.

Eyeballs...not so much fannies in seats live at the venue.

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