Detroit Lions expected to start new bowl in 2014, likely B1G vs. ACC, at Ford Field sources told @espn. Would eliminate Little Caesars Bowl
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 21, 2013
Bowl tie-in redistribution season has produced its strangest result yet.
Fun thing about college football bowl games: they can be commissioned and administered by anybody with money. They were originally started in the name of tourism and now lumber onward in the name of branding, and the cool thing about whatever branding is is that every institution with money thinks it needs to spend it on whatever branding is. Even the Detroit Lions!
The event currently known as the Little Caesars Bowl, which has traditionally pitted MAC teams against major-conference foes, has been sponsored at points by three different Detroit car companies and by an auto workers' union. Because it's changing its name, college football fans will suddenly pretend to have really loved the Little Caesars sponsorship all along, even though none of them actually enjoy the company's products. This is how college football fans are.
The actual victim here: the MAC will need to find another bowl tie-in, doubly so since it's done a better job as of late at actually filling its bowl slots than either the Big Ten or the ACC has.
This thing could be known as the Lions Bowl or the Detroit Bowl or what have you, but it will still be a college football game played in a NFL stadium usually far away from either team's campus. Visit Detroit!
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