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The famous USC marching band holding a pep rally in Federation Square? Sparky the Sun Devil riding a tram? Ralphy the Buffalo leading his team out onto the turf?
Those scenes could be reality if reports from ESPN’s Brett McMurphy about the Pacific 12 Conference wanting a bowl game in Melbourne are true.
Maybe a real-life bison charging out of the tunnel is unrealistic (there’s that pesky quarantine thing), but everything else about McMurphy’s story – in which he quotes unnamed sources – makes perfect sense.
Apparently the Pac 12, one of the NCAA’s power conferences, had been considering a post-season football bowl game in Melbourne for 2015, but is now “targeting the 2016 season”.
It’s unclear whether this was an idea concocted by the Pac 12 alone or if Victorian Major Events and/or a for-profit concern had approached the conference.
No matter, the idea appears to be on the table and, as we’ve seen with Liverpool, State of Origin and the upcoming International Champions Cup, there seems to be no stopping the influx of sporting events to the Victorian capital.
Will it work? College football isn’t the English Premier League and Pac 12 schools – even USC, UCLA and Oregon – aren’t Liverpool or Real Madrid. But there are plenty of positives, including the fact that this would be a legitimate, competitive game, not an exhibition.
Bowl games count on teams’ records, they are prestigious and used as recruiting tools, and most importantly, they are lucrative. Last year the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, which hosts the Pac 12’s fifth-placed finisher, paid each team more than two million dollars.
ESPN’s live coverage into Australia and the fact that Aussies like Jesse Williams, Scott Harding, Adam Gotsis and Tom Hackett have starred at the collegiate level make an event like this much more than a case of the circus coming to town.
However, while there is truth in the old wives’ tale about Australians paying to see a race between two cockroaches, I’m not sure how much they’d pay to see Washington State play Nevada.
One of the attractions of bringing a big sporting event to Australia is that fans get to see a team or individuals they may never get the chance to see live again.
Liverpool: Steven Gerrard. Real Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo. These are iconic clubs and iconic names. It’s easy to see why 100,000 would pack the MCG to watch them play.
A December bowl game is different. To begin with, the odds of seeing one of the Pac 12’s football big boys – Oregon or USC – are minimal. They will more than likely be playing in one of the more prestigious games like the Rose Bowl or even the national championship game.
But with some flexibility and creative thinking, the Pac 12 could help ensure that the Melbourne match-up is an attractive one.
Last year, Stanford finished with a 7-5 record and beat Maryland 45-21 in the Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco. Stanford is one of the USA’s best universities and has a wealthy alumni and fan-base that could easily afford the costs of travelling to Australia.
The school also has a reasonably high football profile thanks to NFL stars like Andrew Luck and Richard Sherman, and would be a good choice as a Pac 12 representative.
The opponent is just as important. Ironically, Maryland, with its Under Armour connection, would have made marketing sense, but in all likelihood it will be another West Coast school for travel reasons.
Obviously you’d love to land someone like Boise State, but the Broncos are also more than likely to be bound for a bigger bowl. That said, with some monetary inducements, a trip to Australia is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for many of these players, coaches and fans.
The other beauty of a bowl game is that teams arrive a week ahead of time and cultural outings are a big part of the buildup. With ESPN more than likely to telecast the game, you’d expect to see nightly highlights of the respective teams in various locales around Melbourne.
One of those locales would probably be the Melbourne Cricket Ground, but the players would certainly be there only as visitors. Cricket has the MCG tied up over the summer and to be honest, the ground is too big for a bowl game.
Etihad Stadium or AAMI Park would make more sense, and a crowd close to 30,000 would be a victory from a PR standpoint.
I would definitely like to see grassroots football organisations like gridiron Victoria involved. There is a passionate and knowledgeable fan-base out there and to see them neglected or priced out of attending would be a massive mistake.
December in Australia used to be a sleepy time, with cricket and a few other events like Sydney to Hobart dominating the news. Now you’ve got the Big Bash phenomenon and the growth of the A-League, with the NBL and ABL struggling for a piece of the pie too.
If scheduled and organised properly, a college football bowl game could be a yearly event. It might even be worth a call to Phil Knight to see if he’ll underwrite the ‘Nike Bowl’, with occasional visits from his Oregon Ducks.
Ok, now I’m getting carried away.
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