Is The Feista Bowl Missing The Larger Picture?

In our opinion, if the Fiesta Bowl chooses Ohio State over Boise State as the at large team, yes, they are missing the larger picture.

The BCS Bowls are not just about who deserves to be there. Most recently Auburn showed that, and last years NC game for the first time, invited a two loss team to the big event.

Ultimately the BCS selection committees look at two things in the selection process, how well do they travel and what kind of TV numbers with the match ups produce.

In this case The Fiesta Bowl committee is looking at Ohio State as a team that travels well and continuously draws a large television audience.

Boise State travels well, they proved that when they took 40,000 fans to the January 1, 2007 Fiesta Bowl. Do they draw as large a TV audience as Ohio State, probably not.

How is the Fiesta Bowl missing the larger picture? Because again it would pit Cinderella Boise State against The Big 12.

The January 2007 Fiesta Bowl featured the 2 loss Oklahoma Sooners against the Cinderella undefeated Boise State Broncos. That game became a legend that night. That game transcended sports audiences. People who did not see the game were talking about it.

The New York Times ran articles about the game, they even offered diagrams of the now 3 most know plays in football bowl history.

The fruits of that game went beyond sports pages and sports shows, it went mainstream America.

For those that don't recall, star running back Ian Johnson went from football hero scoring the legendary 2 point conversion to one knee on national TV. He proposed marriage in front a few million television viewers to his then girl friend and Boise State cheer leader.

This brought even more attention to the Fiesta Bowl, Ian and his wife to be Chrissy were featured guests on national watched shows like Good Morning America.

How is this lightening in a bottle for the Fiesta Bowl? They are the only BCS Bowl that can offer a rematch between David of the WAC and Goliath of the Big 12.

The above is publicity you cannot buy and it is available again through a Boise State Big 12 rematch.

The promotion of this game is a no brainer, the public would eat it up with a spoon.

Were the Fiesta selection committee to select the Broncos against the Big 12 their lead in to the promotion could be. Boise State did it once, can they do it again?

We believe that would be the question asked by sports writers across the country. Their television adds could show the 3 big plays asking that same question, are they good enough to do it again and reply with the Big 12 says no.

The question the Fiesta Bowl selection committee should ask themselves.
1.How much free publicity through sports writers and ESPN can this game generate?
2. How many people watched the first time? We think it was the second most watched bowl game of the 2007 season.
3.How many people would tune in for the rematch?
4. How much water cooler talk would this game generate?

It is our opinion a rematch between Boise State and the Big 12 would draw more television viewers than any other bowl game this season.