Update: The MAC announces the Bahamas Bowl is official. It’ll rotate between American, MAC, and Mountain West ties from season to season, beginning in 2014, similar to the new Boca Raton game’s setup.
Bahamas officially getting new college football bowl game
More bowl games? More bowl games in exotic locations? More bowl games in exotic locations featuring Conference USA teams? Your dreams are becoming real.
Original (August 20): There is no comedy so absurd that the reality of college football can’t top it. The latest, from ESPN’s Brett McMurphy:
Conference USA teams will participate in newly created bowl games in Nassau, Bahamas and Boca Raton, Fla., starting in 2014, sources told ESPN. [...]
C-USA is expected to play the MAC in the Bahamas Bowl and either the American Athletic or Mountain West Conference in Boca Raton, sources said.
That makes 38 bowl games for 2014 and beyond. We’ve known for a while now that various sporting entities are pursuing bowl games at far-flung locales like those listed above, Montgomery, and even Dubai. Montgomery is happening, and now we’re moving down the list. At least players get to go somewhere nice!
Earlier Tuesday, Conference USA announced it's maintaining ties with five bowl games, four of them owned by ESPN. (And ESPN wants the fifth one, the Heart of Dallas. ESPN loves C-USA football.)
Does the island-chain nation even have somewhere to play football, you ask? It has a 30,000-seater often used for soccer, in fact. And Boca Raton has Florida Atlantic’s new stadium, formerly dubbed “Owlcatraz.”
Yes, the College Football Playoff is coming, and yes, bowl games often have a hard time making money already, but, no, we do not have enough of them yet.
Also, this reminds us to toast the Bacardi Bowl, the original island-based semi-amateur football exhibition.
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