Weekday Afternoon Rating's Dilemna for "The Worldwide Leader": Humanitarian Bowl vs. World Series of Poker Re-Runs

According to a Boise news station, the two schools participating in this year's Humanitarian Bowl have sold a whopping 24 combined tickets to the game. Assuming the figures shown were not a typo, the University of Nevada has gotten rid of 8 of its allotted tickets, while the University of Maryland has doubled their competitor's output with 16 seats sold. Let us hope they meant to say "8,000 & 16,000" or, at least, "800 & 1,600".

Regardless of the number of tickets sold, there is absolutely no reason for some bowls to exist. For starters, lets examine this particular contest: The kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 PM on Tuesday, December 30th. How many people will be home at this time? Even if folks were off work and able to catch the telecast, why would any non-affiliated viewer care to watch these two mediocre teams play a meaningless game? A Maryland or Nevada fan may set aside time to view the game on television, but would they ever consider shelling out the money to attend a December game in Idaho? Sitting in subzero weather as my .500 team runs around on frozen blue turf for 3 hours sounds about as fun as spending New Year's Eve in Boise....which you would also be forced to do in this situation. Here are some suggestions on how to improve the bowl season:

(1) If the bowl is held in a location where the average temperature falls below freezing in December, get rid of it. No good bowls (Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar) take place in cold climates.

(2) Any bowl game scheduled to take place between 9 AM to 5 PM on a work day should be eliminated. If your bowl is not a big enough event to attract a prime time (or holiday/ weekend) television audience, there is no reason for it to exist.

(3) All bowl eligible teams should be at least 3 games over .500. Why reward programs with 6-6 and 7-5 records for having average seasons?

(4) Even if you oppose suggestions 1-3, I hope we all agree that 15 bowls should be set aside to determine a National Champion. The championship bracket would consist of 16 teams. The eventual winner would have to win 4 consecutive "bowl" games to be crowned champion.

No more BCS debates, no more pointless bowl games, & no more paper champions...sounds easy doesn't it?