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Are you happy now, “too many bowls” people? We have now lost a bowl, an unfortunate casualty in the postseason cornucopia of football. The San Diego Bowl Game Association board of directors voted to put the nix the Poinsettia Bowl in favor of just having one bowl in San Diego.
“College football and the bowl game structure has gone through major changes through the years and our board feels the time is right to focus our efforts on one postseason game,” said Mark Neville, executive director of the San Diego Bowl Game Association. “The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl staged exciting matchups for more than a decade and we were one of the few cities to host two bowl games.”
Attendance is an issue across all sports, and San Diego was not immune.
The Poinsettia Bowl averaged announced crowds of 26,525 in the past 4 years. The bowl averaged 35,134 in its first 8 years.
— Jon Solomon (@JonSolomonCBS) January 25, 2017
But there is a uniquely San Diego issue at play here when considering which team is and isn’t in the game. The city is home to a naval base, and that affects attendance.
Poinsettia Bowl average crowds with Navy (4 games): 39,274. Poinsettia Bowl average crowds without Navy (8 games): 28,759.
— Jon Solomon (@JonSolomonCBS) January 25, 2017
As for what the conferences will do with tie-ins, at least the Mountain West is already on the move.
Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson says conference is "already in the process of vetting future options" to replace Poinsettia Bowl
— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) January 25, 2017
As the city moves forward with just one game there is the matter of where exactly that Holiday Bowl will be played.
With the San Diego Chargers moving to Los Angeles, there’s now a massive venue, Qualcomm Stadium, without a primary tenet. The bowl committee has started the process of moving the game to Petco Park in 2018, where the Padres play. That means you’ll be seeing more football in baseball stadiums this year.
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And the likelihood of adding a bowl to replace the Poinsettia isn’t high. More bowls are good, but we may not get our wish based on an NCAA moratorium placed on adding to the postseason slate last April.
NCAA approves 3-year moratorium on new bowls, sources told @ESPN. Austin, Charleston & Myrtle Beach were in process of adding bowls in 2016
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) April 11, 2016