Obviously the NCAA isn’t interested in setting the bar very high for approving new bowl games: Twelve of last year’s 34-game postseason lineup were less than 10 years old, and more than half (19) didn’t exist before 1990. Among that group were games staged in Boise, Mobile, Shreveport and Albuquerque and others sponsored by the likes of a local credit union and the website of a pizza chain. In 2008, with the auto industry barely treading water on taxpayer-funded driftwood, the Motor City Bowl was saved at the last second by the Michigan Regional Carpenters and Millwright’s Union; by 2009, it was the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl.

So it should not be a surprise today that the NCAA formally approved two new bowl games set for this winter: The Pinstripe Bowl, matching also-rans from the Big East and Big 12 in Yankee Stadium on Dec. 30; and the Dallas Football Classic, a.k.a. the Fake Cotton Bowl, pitting the Big 12 and Big Ten in the original Cotton Bowl stadium on New Year’s Day. That brings the total number of bowl games this winter to 35, requiring 70 teams to fill all available slots. And since the number of bowl-eligible candidates has held steady at 71 each of the last three years, the NCAA went out of its way to assure bowls that all slots will be filled, even if they have the fudge the “bowl-eligible” thing. That means either a) The NCAA will allow desperate games to select 6-6 teams with two wins over lower-division programs, where only one of those wins is supposed to count towards the necessary six for eligibility; or b) Teams with losing records will be eligible to pick up the slack.

Again: Losing records. In bowl games.

Yes, the NCAA will approve just about any group that comes along with a matchup, a sponsor and a line of credit. Well, unless it happens to represent something other than bottom-line commercialism, anyway, as the Orlando-based Cure Bowl discovered for the second year in a row:

The Cure Bowl’s latest application for bowl certification was denied by the NCAA, according to the Associated Press.

It was the second time the NCAA denied an application filed by Orlando community members hoping to host a bowl at [Central Florida’s] Bright House Networks Stadium. Proceeds of the bowl game would have gone to organizations that fight breast cancer.
[...]
Last year, the group’s application was denied because it had not secured a title sponsor or line of credit. This time, the Cure Bowl had a line of credit but was vying with two popular bowl candidates in Dallas and New York for the final two certification spots. If another bowl loses its certification or decides to shut down for financial reasons, the Cure Bowl would have an opportunity to apply again for certification.

It’s not fair to accuse anyone at the NCAA of being insensitive to cancer, especially given that late president Myles Brand died from pancreatic cancer last September. But if there’s any proposal that deserves to have the rules bent in its favor to the extent that the concept of a bowl game as recognition for a quality season becomes that much more meaningless, it’s that one. Maybe if they move it to Yankee Stadium, it has a chance.

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