I know this is unlikely to change any minds, but here are some quotes of interest from the guys running the Sun, Holiday and Poinsettia Bowls regarding the debate about you-know-what:
Bernie Olivas, executive director of the Sun Bowl, said the bowl is the biggest event – of any kind – in El Paso every year.
“If there’s no bowl game here,” he said, “the hotels are empty between Christmas and New Year’s.”
Bruce Binkowski, executive director of the San Diego Bowl Association that operates the Holiday and Poinsettia bowls, said the association’s mission is to “fill hotel rooms.”
“We run the bowl for the benefit of San Diego,” he said.
Both Olivas and Binkowski said adopting a playoff format would damage the current bowl system. They said the bowls are made up of a weeklong series of events, and making them part of a playoff would seriously hurt their ability to generate revenue for their communities.
“In a playoff system, teams would show up the day before the game, play the next day and leave,” Olivas said. “If your bowl is part of the playoff, there will be no events, no festivities leading up to the game.
“Those events are a big part of the reason bowl games exist. To have a playoff would jeopardize that.”
Binkowski said a playoff also would affect attendance at the games. In an eight-team playoff format, for example, fans of the two finalists likely would be expected to travel long distances to fill 50,000- to 60,000-seat stadiums for three games, as opposed to just one game under the current bowl format.
“I don’t think they would travel from week to week,” Binkowski said, “especially on short notice and in these economic times.”
Fox concurs. He said Alamo Bowl week (right after Christmas) was the slowest tourism week of the year in San Antonio before creation of the bowl.
“Now it’s the busiest,” he said, “because of the game.”
Yeah, I know, nothing to be concerned about with a four-team playoff.
Just remember that there are a lot of turfs being defended in this battle.
Get The Picture 
I know people roll their eyes at these bowl directors but I can attest to this having lived in San Diego and attended a few Holiday Bowls.
Any bowl game worth its salt has a good week or so of events involving the teams (Rose Bowl brings teams to Disneyland, and also the Lawry’s Beef Bowl), to parades (San Diego’s largest parade is for the Holiday Bowl), the local news gets involved, there’s Galas, team rallies with their fans at various venues, concerts, you name it. These are major, major civic events that can’t be just brushed off.
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Geez, when did bowl games switch from being an athletic contest to a wefare event? Happy Fourth to everyone!
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See: Rose Bowl Parade
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They’re not welfare events, I think its unfair to characterize them as that, but clearly they’ve become civic events with stakeholders and beneficiaries.
As was stated by one of the bowl folks, teams aren’t just dropping in the day before, playing, then leaving. Its not a regular season game but an event.
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Boo hoo.
A couple of worthless bowls wouldn’t get to suck blood from the sport that deserves a real playoff and a real champion.
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Bowling for Dollars! WOW! You dug deep into the “game shows of the ’80’s” vault for that one. Nice.
I happen to be a fan of the bowl games. I do think there are a few too many bowls and I don’t agree with 6-6 teams making it to a bowl game. However bowl games are what make college football unique. Plus the Holiday Bowl has been one of the more entertaining bowls the last few years.
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