The story for tonight's BCS National Championship game at Dolphin Stadium is twofold: that tickets aren't as hard to come by as in previous years (if you consider $600 tickets to a championship football game a bargain) and that something like 83 percent of gamblers are putting their money on Florida, who are five point favorites at this point.
Tickets are relatively cheap, the theory goes, because outside of the
Midwest, nobody gives a rip about the Oklahoma Sooners and their boring
state. Oklahoma is the red-headed step-child to Texas, which isn't
saying much.
And then on the other side of the pigskin you have the much-hated
Florida Gators and their megalomaniacal coach, who will order his
kicker out to boot meaningless field goals in the final seconds of a
meaningless game just because he is an asshole with perfectly coifed hair.
But alas, that is college football these days, where entire seasons are
decided by strength of schedule, margin of victory and complicated
computer formulas. Kind of makes you pine for the days when Bobby
Bowden and his awshucks backwoodsy charm was the face of the game.
My theory is that interest is down because the whole thing is a
charade; a farce thrusted upon us by corporate America, who don't want
to give up their ridiculously lucrative bowl system that has more to do
with selling seats and television advertisements than it does crowning
a true national champion on the field. Besides, as Rick Reilly of ESPN
argues, the true national champs were already crowned last week.
--Jesse Hyde
