ESPN Suggests Paying College Football Players For Bowl Games
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Since the inception of college football‘s playoff system, postseason bowl games have increasingly become more or less irrelevant.
With the importance of the regular season and conference champions dwindling with each passing year, all eyes are on the 12 teams remaining in the end when the CFP committee makes its final decisions — so much so that Notre Dame decided to forgo its bowl invitation after the school was left out.
Opt-outs and coaching changes have also played a major role in bowl games losing a lot of their luster. But ESPN‘s Rece Davis believes he has a few ideas that can fix college football’s bowl game problem — which involves leaning into the more monetary aspects of the current CFB landscape.
Rece Davis on CFB bowl games: ‘Play for money’
On the latest episode of the “College GameDay Podcast,” Davis made his pitch for how the sport should proceed in the era of the CFP and NIL.
“I’ve got some ideas on how to save the bowls,” Davis shared. “They may not like it because they may not make as much money. People have said the things like ‘let’s play the bowls at the beginning of the season and let’s make them not count on your record’. That’s a bad idea. If you’re gonna play, it’s got to count on your record or nobody’s going to care.”
“I’m a traditionalist and I like the bowls. They’re fun. … Historically, [bowl games] have been a very important piece of the puzzle historically in college football,” the host continued. “What do you do? Here’s what you do. … You play for money.”
“You got to a non-Playoff bowl game or any bowl game, and there’s a cash prize for the players. Winners get more and losers get less. Play for money,” he explained. “You’re already playing for money, so let’s play for some big prize. Get a corporate sponsorship. You hype it up and you play for money. That’s what I think you can do for the bowls.”
College basketball’s ‘The Players Era Festival’
Davis’ idea mirrors a lot of what men’s and women’s college hoops already does with The Players Era Festival, which is held as an annual early-season tournament that’s set to expand to 32 teams next year.
The bracket has already given fans some very entertaining games while also granting the winner an extra $1 million in NIL funds, the runner-up $500,000, the third-place finisher $300,000 and the second runner-up $200K.
Margin of victory, record, total points and head-to-head records help determine the title-game match — which was won by the Michigan Wolverines and Texas Longhorns in the respective men’s and women’s brackets.
This story was originally published by The Spun on Dec 23, 2025, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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