College Bowl Games: The Season of Giving

Outside of BCS controversy, college football bowl season is a pretty exciting time.  The players and coaches have spent months working their tails off and now are rewarded with trips to fun places, usually (sorry Little Caesars Bowl participants), and some time to hang out with their teammates on a mini vacation.  It is also a good excuse for fans of these teams to take a vacation during the Holiday season, which is especially fun if your school of choice is in a northern state.  Another fun part is finding out what gifts each of the bowls are handing out.  Here is a rundown of the bowls with the best gift packages; info is from Sports Business Daily.

I would like to note that the Pinstripe Bowl didn’t disclose what gifts they were handing out and the AT&T Cotton Bowl only disclosed a Fossil watch, but not anything else.  That leads me to believe the gifts are really awful or really awesome.  Or they just haven’t got around to lining anything up yet.

Lots of bowls hand out Best Buy gift cards or “gift suites” which is nice because it allows you to get something you like, but I want to look at the bowls that went ahead and picked out the gifts themselves.  Here are the top three bowls based on their gift giving.

1.       Beef ‘O’Brady’s Bowl - Sony PlayStation 3, Oakley Eyepatch 2, Oakley backpack duffel, mini-helmet

Anything Oakley brand is pretty cool and college kids all enjoy a PS3.

2.       Sheraton Hawaii Bowl - Oakley sunglasses, Aloha shirt, Pro Athletics custom beach shorts, Oakley T-shirt, performance wear, cap or visor, backpack, beach towels, bowl calendar, playing cards

Again Oakley stuff is good, but I like how the bowl played into its Hawaiian them by going with a beached theme goodie bag.

3.       AutoZone Liberty Bowl - Best Buy gift card, Fossil watch, Nike training shoes, Nike sport sandals, Nike sunglasses, Nike Air Jordan backpack, commemorative game ball

This is a good collection and variety of swag for these bowl participants.

And then there are the bowls that didn’t do such a great job.  Their gifts are more like they came from grandma instead of your cool uncle.  Here are the bottom three bowls based on their gifts.

1.       Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl - Soundmatters Personal Audiophile loudspeaker, Fossil watch, cap, Timbuk2 custom messenger bag

A messenger bag really? I am sure they are big in Europe and all but that seems like a lame gift for a football game.

2.       Little Caesars Bowl - Timely Watch Co. watch, leather duffel bag, commemorative football

Nothing too exciting here, they might have been better off giving Little Caesars gift cards. And this is on top of having to go to Detroit in December.

3.       R + L Carriers - Samsung Galaxy tablet

Don’t get me wrong a Galaxy tablet is cool and all, but what if you already have one?  You either have to sell it or give it as a gift.  The R + L Carriers Bowl should really look into diversifying their gift portfolio.