I had heard that the Bowl Games were giving out stuff to the players, but I didn’t know how much stuff it really was. Over on Fox Sports, they detail what each bowl is giving out. (The navigation is a bit clunky, as it’s a countdown from 20 to 1… not exactly intuitive.)
Anyway, I had always thought that these players were student-athletes, and there were very strict rules on giving stuff to players. Apparently, when it comes to big corporate sponsors, those rules can be significantly relaxed.
It’s interesting that there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the quality of the swag and the prestige of the bowl. (i.e. it makes sense to me that the Rose Bowl would be giving out better stuff than, say, the Outback Bowl, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.)
I think the worst swag is coming from the Humanitarian Bowl:
- Camcorder, case and tapes (tapes? really? what is this, 2002?)
- Winter Jacket
- Gloves
- Hoodie sweatshirt
- Skull cap
- Baseball cap
- Commemorative football
- Travel/shaving kit
- Nail kit
- Drawstring bag
Compare that to the Alamo Bowl:
- 80G Sony PS3
- NBA Ballers Sony PS3 video game (a basketball game for football players?)
- Fossil watch
- Mini-helmet
So given a choice, what bowl swag would you go with?
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