Michigan football: What happens to bowls after conference expansion?

What conference expansion could mean for Michigan football and other Big Ten programs in terms of playing in bowl games. 

With so much news coming out over the last week about conference expansions and dream-scenario super-leagues for college football, it has hit a feverish point.

While conference expansion (depending on what team or teams are added) can be a great thing, it also has some significant repercussions and it will cause a chain reaction that nobody seems to be talking about.

What will happen to the bowl games?

It is a tradition that every year after the regular season is completed (not counting 2020’s COVID-season), a team that has at least six wins earns a bid to a bowl game.

The main thing that makes bowl season so special is to see some of the lesser-known teams competing with some of the big dogs. If a MAC or an AAC school (like Cincinnati last year) has a great season, they can potentially earn a New Year’s Six bowl berth and compete against some of the best really good teams in college football.

Just because a historically significant program (like Georgia, Auburn, Texas, Florida, Michigan football, Notre Dame, etc) only earned a trip to the NY6, doesn’t mean that its not still considered very good in college football.

Anyways, because the Big 12 is most likely folding forever (because Texas and Oklahoma are leaving, and possibly the PAC-12 too), those teams are going to need to find a new conference.
And because the entire Big 12 conference has bowl games attached to it (certain conferences get rights to certain bowl games), it would seem to be a tricky situation in the future to resolve.

For example, some bowl games that the Big Ten has rights to are the Rose Bowl, the Citrus Bowl, the Outback Bowl, Holiday Bowl, and Pinstripe Bowl, to name a few.

When it is time for bowl season, the bowl committees select which Big Ten teams they want in their bowl games based on their regular-season record, popularity (brand), and preference. The same things go for all of the other Power Five conferences.

With news that Iowa State, Kansas, and Oklahoma State all could come to the Big Ten soon, it makes you wonder how the bowl rights and games will change?

I don’t know if the bowl committees would just simply be able to change their bowl rights just to meet the Big Ten’s newest additions. I’m sure it’s not as simple as that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was quite a tricky situation, with contract negotiations involved and the lot. Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren has quite a bit to sort out if this is true.

This is not just going to be a Big Ten problem though. Pretty much all Power Five conferences will be dealing with some sort of fall-back over this situation. This will cause a chain reaction throughout college football.

The only teams that will be unaffected by these conference expansions and the bowl adjustments are the conference teams in the SWAC and MEAC and those lower conference schools.

Whether there will be fewer bowl games remains to be seen. The bowl committees might just have to add the expanded teams in certain conferences to their bowl rights list. I really can’t foresee a situation where a ton of bowl games just fold because of this situation.

Too much money is on the line for these bowl games.

One thing that COVID has taught the bowl committees (and people in general) is to live, learn, and adapt. The bowl committees are definitely probably unhappy about this situation on one hand (with the contract stuff) but on the other, they have to be extremely excited because now, they will have more of a variety of teams to choose from for bowl games.

Overall, I hope that this ongoing expansion situation doesn’t affect any of the bowl games in the near future. It would be a shame if some bowls got canceled simply because a conference added a few teams here or there.

Obviously, bowl season doesn’t mean as much as it used to anymore (at least if your team isn’t in the playoff) but bowl season always brings intriguing matchups every year with some teams fans wouldn’t normally see on national tv standing toe-to-toe against the big boys. This situation will definitely be something to monitor in the coming months and probably, years.