Best Bowl Game options.

[Commoner]

The vocal minority that tout "fire Holmoe because he didn't get us in a fabulous bowl against a P5 team with a 6-6 record" and "fire Sitaki because he didn't go 10-2 this season" are just very out of touch with reality. If you think Sitaki and/or Holmoe are not doing a good job, that's fine. But these wretched arguments to back it up are just plain silly.

Holmoe said he would leave the bowl matchup to ESPN. That is failure. BYU has been burned by previous partners because they left the decisions to the partners and failed to get contracts in writing.

That is repeated incompetence on Holmoe's part.

I'm not saying Holmoe should give up on ESPN as a partner, but he can't let them dictate all the terms or we'll end up with terrible bowls every year. He has leverage and he should use it. BYU has a better brand than any other non P5. If BYU wants to be perceived as a P5 equivalent (and eventually get paid like one) they need to stipulate things like this in their contracts.

ESPN owns most of the bowls. Leaving it up to the business partner is a good idea.

ESPN owns 14 bowls. Its influence is limited.

[SpiffCoug]

The vocal minority that tout "fire Holmoe because he didn't get us in a fabulous bowl against a P5 team with a 6-6 record" and "fire Sitaki because he didn't go 10-2 this season" are just very out of touch with reality. If you think Sitaki and/or Holmoe are not doing a good job, that's fine. But these wretched arguments to back it up are just plain silly.

Holmoe said he would leave the bowl matchup to ESPN. That is failure. BYU has been burned by previous partners because they left the decisions to the partners and failed to get contracts in writing.

That is repeated incompetence on Holmoe's part.

I'm not saying Holmoe should give up on ESPN as a partner, but he can't let them dictate all the terms or we'll end up with terrible bowls every year. He has leverage and he should use it. BYU has a better brand than any other non P5. If BYU wants to be perceived as a P5 equivalent (and eventually get paid like one) they need to stipulate things like this in their contracts.

ESPN owns most of the bowls. Leaving it up to the business partner is a good idea.

ESPN owns 14 bowls. Its influence is limited.

Not in the bowls we're talking about though.

[SpiffCoug]

I posted this earlier. There are 39 bowls this year. And there are just six that feature a P5 vs G5 and one of those is the Fiesta Bowl (i.e., a non-contracted bowl tie-in). The ones with contracted tie-ins are the Las Vegas, Birmingham, First Responder, Indpendence, and the Military Bowl.

And interestingly enough, of the five with contracted P5 vs G5 tie-ins, three are owned by ESPN. The Birmingham, Las Vegas, and the First Responder bowl. I think BYU should have no complaints with how they were "treated" this bowl season. ESPN was a good partner to have, when we didn't have a tie-in after our contracted bowl went belly up.

None of the other bowls desired by some, have the same ties and relationships to BYU or ESPN as the one to which we were selected (First Responder) and traded to. I'm not sure the other bowls are any better than the one to which we're going.

Here are the the other bowls owned by ESPN.
Armed Forces Bowl
Bahamas Bowl
Boca Raton Bowl
Camellia Bowl
Celebration Bowl
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Frisco Bowl
Gasparilla Bowl
Hawaii Bowl
Myrtle Beach Bowl (2020)[15]
New Mexico Bowl
Texas Bowl

[Gunk]

Anyone complaining about our bowl is looking a gift horse in the mouth. We're lucky to be playing in one. Certainly wasn't because of skill.

[jvquarterback]

Anyone complaining about our bowl is looking a gift horse in the mouth. We're lucky to be playing in one. Certainly wasn't because of skill.

This is total garbage. Even without the arrangement with ESPN garunteeing a bowl slot BYU gets the potato bowl game slot over any other 6-6 G5 team based on ticket sales and TV viewership.

If TH can't negotiate a better deal than what we have now it just shows his incompetence. Something already apparent in allowing the hiring of the offensive coaching staff in 2016 and his lack of comprehension of the value of the BYU brand.

[hawkwing]

Agreed. Lucky to be in any bowl.

[Jarhead]

We need our relationship with ESPN a lot more than they need us. And we also have a TV contract expiring soon that it would be great if ESPN ended up renewing at a high financial position. Holmoe acting like our bowl game not being good enough when we are 6-6 is not going to win us any friends or build any bridges.

[jvquarterback]

We need our relationship with ESPN a lot more than they need us. And we also have a TV contract expiring soon that it would be great if ESPN ended up renewing at a high financial position. Holmoe acting like our bowl game not being good enough when we are 6-6 is not going to win us any friends or build any bridges.

So he should already concede that BYU is worth less than Wake Forest, Duke, BC, or even Boise?

This is when Holmoe needs to open the books and start telling ESPN what BYU is worth. It would have been a great opportunity to start negotiations with Fox as well.

[Jarhead]

We need our relationship with ESPN a lot more than they need us. And we also have a TV contract expiring soon that it would be great if ESPN ended up renewing at a high financial position. Holmoe acting like our bowl game not being good enough when we are 6-6 is not going to win us any friends or build any bridges.

So he should already concede that BYU is worth less than Wake Forest, Duke, BC, or even Boise?

This is when Holmoe needs to open the books and start telling ESPN what BYU is worth. It would have been a great opportunity to start negotiations with Fox as well.

It's stuff like this that in my opinion leads to people saying BYU has an over-inflated opinion of itself and is extremely difficult to work with, and is not going to help us medium or long term. I just don't see this as the proper course of action. You disagree and that's fine.

[SpiffCoug]

The vocal minority that tout "fire Holmoe because he didn't get us in a fabulous bowl against a P5 team with a 6-6 record" and "fire Sitaki because he didn't go 10-2 this season" are just very out of touch with reality. If you think Sitaki and/or Holmoe are not doing a good job, that's fine. But these wretched arguments to back it up are just plain silly.

Holmoe said he would leave the bowl matchup to ESPN. That is failure. BYU has been burned by previous partners because they left the decisions to the partners and failed to get contracts in writing.

That is repeated incompetence on Holmoe's part.

I'm not saying Holmoe should give up on ESPN as a partner, but he can't let them dictate all the terms or we'll end up with terrible bowls every year. He has leverage and he should use it. BYU has a better brand than any other non P5. If BYU wants to be perceived as a P5 equivalent (and eventually get paid like one) they need to stipulate things like this in their contracts.

ESPN owns most of the bowls. Leaving it up to the business partner is a good idea.

ESPN owns 14 bowls. Its influence is limited.

14 of 39 is 35.9%. That's not a limited influence. That more influence than any other single entity.