NCAA Football Fans: Pay Players Who Win Bowl Games
Covers spoke to 3,000 NCAA football fans to get their take on bowl madness – and some of their responses are sure to create plenty of lively discussion.
NCAA football's annual bowl season is in full swing – and while there is plenty of debate over which teams will compete for the national championship (pour one out for Florida State players and fans), there's no contesting that Bowl Madness is a highlight of the sports calendar.
There are plenty of intriguing storylines swirling around the NCAA football landscape this year, from the imminent expansion of the College Football Playoff to the continued (and discouraging) trend of marquee players skipping their team's bowl games to prep for the NFL.
Covers spoke to 3,000 NCAA football fans to get their take on bowl madness – and some of their responses are sure to create plenty of lively discussion.
How many bowl games will you watch this season?
This gives you a good sense of the makeup of this survey. The overwhelming majority of poll respondents will watch at least one bowl game in 2023, while more than half of the participants are locked in to three or more games this season.
We'll use these results to divide the answers for subsequent questions into overall, "die-hard" (participants who intend to watch 3+ bowl games) and "casual" (those who will watch two or fewer games.) This gives us additional insight based on different levels of fan interest.
Do you watch the College Football Playoff?
The College Football Playoff certainly generates plenty of discourse every year (and that's putting it mildly ahead of the 2023 edition), but that's only because it's easily one of the most popular events on the North American sports calendar.
Our respondents are all over the four-team mini-tournament, with nearly a quarter saying they don't miss a minute of the action and a whopping 52% falling under the "Always" or "Very Often" categories. Only 3.5% say they never watch (and I'm not sure I totally believe them).
Should there be more or fewer bowl games?
As the saying goes, if it ain't broke ....
More than 60% of respondents like the bowl calendar just the way it is; there are 43 games on the 2023-24 bowl schedule, culminating with the CFP National Championship Jan. 8 at NRG Stadium in Houston.
That said, it's interesting that a far larger share of the remaining participants favor fewer bowl games over adding to the list – and that's understandable given that many of these games lack wide-scale interest outside of the participating teams' fan bases (and NCAA bettors).
Do you like that the CFP is expanding from four to 12 teams next year?
The chasm between true NCAA football fans and their more casual counterparts is striking.
Nearly 5-in-6 die-hards are in favor of the NCAA expanding the CFP into a 12-team event in 2024, and that makes sense. Opponents of the current system have plenty of ammunition from the 2023 selections, which omitted a Seminoles team that steamrolled through the ACC with a perfect 12-0 record and notable wins over LSU, Clemson, Duke, and Louisville.
Casual fans, on the other hand, are nearly split down the middle here. Perhaps there is concern that a 12-team field will water down the playoff too much. Or maybe there is a mistaken belief that a bigger playoff means an even bigger bowl calendar, which is not necessarily the case.
One question that seems to come up around this time each year: Would a team of the best players in college football hold its own against – or even defeat – the worst team in the NFL?
Would a team of NCAA all-stars beat the worst team in the NFL?
Sorry, sports radio hot-take dispensers, but common sense has prevailed here.
Nearly 57% of all survey participants believe it is unlikely that an NCAAF all-star team could upend the worst NFL team in a given season, while only 26% believe it's likely to happen (it really isn't). The only major difference between fan groups: A greater level of indifference among casual supporters, with more than a quarter opting to take a neutral stance.
Sportsbooks share that belief that a hypothetical matchup between the best college football has to offer and the NFL's Carolina Panthers would be a no contest.
"I think the NFL team could name the score if they wanted to," Jay Kornegay, VP of race and sportsbook operations at The SuperBook at The Westgate Las Vegas, told Covers. "You have an NFL team made up of pros versus a team that might, might have four-to-six pros (maybe NFL reserves). Panthers -28."
The final question of the survey is easily the most divisive: Should players who win their bowl games be awarded a cash prize as an added incentive for stars to actually participate?
Should there be a cash prize for players on winning bowl teams?
A slight majority of NCAA football fans are amenable to players earning a cash bonus for being on the winning side of a bowl game appearance. Even more interesting is that there is no clear consensus among either die-hard or casual bowl viewers.
While the debate rages on over the merits of allowing college players to earn money while they're still in school, it will be interesting to see whether public opinion shifts on this topic in the years to come. But for the time being, fans want the NCAA to show bowl winners the money.
The challenge associated with paying players who participate in bowl games is that there's very little money to go around at the moment. While schools earn $300,000 for qualifying for a bowl game, and their conferences are given a split of a bowl pot ranging from the low-six figures to more than $8 million, most opt to divide that money between every team in the conference.
The SEC and Big 12 provide bonuses to teams that reach the College Football Playoff (with an additional top-up if that team reaches the championship game), but again, the money is given to the school, not the players. And a good chunk of it is earmarked for expenses related to those teams' participation in those games.
Dividing up whatever is left between massive collegiate rosters, coaching and support staffs, and anyone else associated with the team just isn't practical. So unless the NCAA decides to kick in tens of millions of dollars itself, players aren't likely to see any compensation for playing in a bowl game, let alone winning one.
