Bajoro
06 Jan 2003, 09:37 PM
http://www.msnbc.com/news/854230.asp
The final overtime thriller notwithstanding, I agree with Starr's observations: The marriage of big business and big-time college sports has not been pretty.
"To fill 56 spots, any team with a winning season—almost half the teams competing at the 1-A level—get an invite. And it’s painfully obvious that once virtually everyone is invited to the party, it ceases to be special. Does anybody but a few diehard alums and guys with a bad gambling jones actually want to see 7-6 teams like Purdue and Washington play what is essentially a consolation game even if they call it the Sun Bowl? And that’s a step up from Wake Forest, seventh in the ACC, versus Oregon, eighth in the Pac 10, in the Seattle Bowl."
btw, he wrote a very nice preview to the World Cup last summer, iirc
The final overtime thriller notwithstanding, I agree with Starr's observations: The marriage of big business and big-time college sports has not been pretty.
"To fill 56 spots, any team with a winning season—almost half the teams competing at the 1-A level—get an invite. And it’s painfully obvious that once virtually everyone is invited to the party, it ceases to be special. Does anybody but a few diehard alums and guys with a bad gambling jones actually want to see 7-6 teams like Purdue and Washington play what is essentially a consolation game even if they call it the Sun Bowl? And that’s a step up from Wake Forest, seventh in the ACC, versus Oregon, eighth in the Pac 10, in the Seattle Bowl."
btw, he wrote a very nice preview to the World Cup last summer, iirc