SCOTT JACOBS

The EagleBank Bowl starts it.  The BCS Championship Game finishes it.  And somewhere in between 32 other bowl games are played.  So many of these bowl games are absurd, and un-necessary, and the people that found these games are even at a loss for how to explain why the subpar teams they invite to play in their games are even worthy of a post-season game.

But hey, everyone wins.  Even if they lose.  Because with the bowl game system, comes a plethora of random gifts.  Most of the time these gifts say things like, “Thanks for flying half way across the country, here’s a Sony noise cancelling headphone.” Other times they may say, “Thanks for coming out to Arizona, it’s freaking hot outside here, so here’s a hat.”  And even though all bowl games are not created equal, they do have to play by one rule, when it comes to rewarding the mediocre/semi-decent/really good teams that they host. They can only give each school up to $500 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school.

We should let you know also that a lot of gifts given in numerous bowl games look familiar.  Why?  Because Davene Inc., a promotions company, has brokered deals for 14 out of the 34 bowl games.

The entire list and breakdown of gifts for each game is here.