Hair dryers, aloha shirts and belt buckles return as bowl gifts this season, but new to the roster are pylons and custom-made Fatheads, according to SportsBusiness Daily/Journals annual gift package rundown. All told, at least $5.4M will be spent on gifts that will be given to the '14-15 bowl game participants, up 11% compared with the expenditures of a year ago. The increase is fueled in part by the addition of several new bowls. In addition, two-thirds of the bowl game committees will be staging the increasingly popular gift suites or shopping sprees in the coming weeks, up from half the committees a year ago. The NCAA allows each bowl to award up to $550 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school. Schools can, and usually do, buy additional gifts that they can distribute to participants beyond that 125 limit. In addition, participants can receive awards worth up to $400 from the school and up to $400 from the conference for postseason play, covering both conference title games and bowl games.
SOUNDS SUITE: Gift suites are set up as private events prior to the game in which game participants, and often bowl VIPs, are given an order form and allowed to select a gift, or gifts, up to a value that is predetermined by each bowl, not to exceed the NCAA limit. Roughly half the suites take place in the bowls host city, while the others are staged by the games committee on the campus of a participating college. Such will be the case for the teams taking part in the inaugural Popeyes Bahamas Bowl. Complete Sports Management Founder & President Lea Miller, whose firm operates the Bahamas Bowl, said that rather than deal with the taxes, customs and tariffs that would have been involved with getting gifts shipped to the islands, or hosting a suite on-site, it will be easier to host the events on the campuses of the respective schools playing in the game.
MORE FROM THE NEW KIDS: This years new bowl games in Boca Raton, Fla., and Montgomery, Ala., also opted for gift suites for their inaugural offerings. The other two new, non-championship game committees opted to negotiate with vendors on their own. The Miami Beach Bowl, which is run by the American Athletic Conference and has a six-year rental agreement at Marlins Park, is providing players with, among other things, items from Under Armour, a top-tier corporate partner of the committee. The Quick Lane Bowl, which is run by the Lions, will be providing each participant in that game a custom-made Fathead with the players likeness. Fathead is based in Detroit.
OLDIES, BUT GOODIES: The hair dryer (Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso), belt buckle (AdvoCare Texas Bowl in Houston) and aloha shirts (Hawaii Bowl in Honolulu) are long-standing gifts from the bowl committees in those respective cities. While a spokesperson for the New Era Pinstripe Bowl would not disclose the contents of that games gift packages, New Era officials said that bowl participants will receive a selection of the companys products. Similarly, Goodyear Cotton Bowl reps would not disclose the contents of their gift packages. Organizers of the College Football Playoff national championship game also declined to provide details, but a spokesperson for the event said those participating players would not be visiting a gift suite -- as the committee knows that all the participants coming to that game would have already had that experience at the national semifinal games (Rose Bowl and Allstate Sugar Bowl) in the preceding days.
