Updated November 12, 2026, 1:34 p.m. ET
The expansion of the College Football Playoff to 24 teams has sparked outrage over how it diminishes one of the sport’s best regular seasons.
But expansion could also have a drastic impact on a hallowed and beloved playoff tradition.
What’s happening to bowl games?
Since “The Granddaddy of Them All” at the Rose Bowl started it all over a century ago, bowl games have served as a reward for a successful season, an opportunity to face a comparable opponent in a unique game, and a chance to play one last game. Even as the sport evolved from using bowls to crown national champions to a definitive title game and ultimately a playoff, bowl games remained the perfect holiday treat in December.
But with the playoff field doubling next season, non-CFP bowls suddenly find themselves in a precarious position. Teams that otherwise would have made it to these games will instead become playoff participants, disrupting the entire bowl ecosystem.
USA TODAY Sports spoke with several bowl game executives about what the future holds. They remain confident that lawn bowls will survive, but admit they don’t yet know what the future will look like as they wait for the next steps.
“There are so many unanswered questions,” said Scott Ramsey, president and CEO of Music City Bowl.
The most obvious domino is that there will be fewer bowl eligible teams available.
Excluding the CFP, the 2026 season has 36 bowl games, requiring 72 non-playoff teams in addition to the 12 playoff selections.
The Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Peach and Cotton bowls are safely part of the CFP quarterfinal and semifinal rotation. But adding 12 teams to the playoffs removes potential participants from premier non-CFP games such as the Pop-Tarts, Citrus, ReliaQuest, Alamo and Gator bowls. The trickle-down effect could leave fewer bowl-eligible teams to go around.
“If you do the math, that obviously means 12 fewer teams available for the bowl system. So for that reason, we’ll obviously see fewer bowl games,” said Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season.
Some bowl games will unfortunately end. Which ones remain up in the air.
The expanded playoffs will include more teams from the Power Conference, including the SEC and Big Ten, significantly reducing the available pool. If the 24-team field had been implemented in 2025, the SEC could have placed as many as seven teams in the playoffs, leaving only three for bowl games.
Bowl games have contractual obligations with conferences, as well as contingency plans involving other leagues. But without enough teams available, the entire system finds itself put to the test. Group of six bowls are not excluded.
Ultimately, bowl games don’t decide their own future. Conferences must determine how many playoff spots and tie-ins they want, with broadcast partners also playing an important role. These conversations are just beginning.
“Conferences have to decide: Do they want to continue playing teams that don’t qualify for the playoffs? They all have to come together and say yes, we want to do this,” said Gator Bowl President and CEO Greg McGarity. “Everyone understands that it’s going to be difficult for 37 bowls to exist in the current environment.”
If you’re not in the quarterfinal and semifinal rotation, it can feel like death is knocking at the door.
However, don’t call the morgue just yet.
“The fact doesn’t change the fact that the majority of teams that make the playoffs are going to be in a bowl game,” Carparelli said. “College football needs a bowl season.”
College football doesn’t just need balls. Bowls have proven time and time again that they can survive.
This is not the first time that the system has been forced to adjust. This happened when the BCS arrived, and then again with the creation and expansion of the College Football Playoff.
Despite all the changes that seemed likely to diminish them, the bowls still stand, including 14 created before the 21st century.
“These are great holidays and really do a lot of service to college football,” said Mark Neville, CEO of Sports San Diego, which oversees the Holiday and Poinsettia Bowl.
Their importance has faded in some ways, with player unsubscriptions and declining attendance hurting the cause. But a key factor in their survival has not disappeared: the audience.
The 2025-26 bowl season was one of the most watched in recent years. ESPN averaged 3.1 million viewers to its non-CFP bowls, the highest rating since the 2015-16 season. The Citrus Bowl between Texas and Michigan drew 9.1 million viewers, while BYU and Georgia Tech drew 8.7 million for the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
Both ranked among the top 30 most-watched college football games of the season and both beat two games in the first round of the College Football Playoff.
“Bowls in our nature have really become a televised event, and we accept that and understand that,” McGarity said.
The crowds may not be as big, but the networks and sponsors are happy to see so many looks. This suggests that these midweek windows, in the dead period between the end of the regular season and the heart of the playoffs, remain valuable television real estate. Bowls also provides a natural introduction to the CFP, keeping the focus on the sport throughout the month of December.
“We certainly think there remains a need for postseason opportunities for teams. Clearly there are still good television windows,” Nick Dawson, senior vice president of college sports programming and acquisitions for ESPN, told reporters.
But does that viewership persist as more of the top teams make the playoffs, playing on campuses rather than in bowls? And if not, how do bowls keep viewers interested in games featuring unseeded teams?
The future of bowl games? Look at the Pop-Tarts bowl
Steve Hogan is at the helm of some of the most beloved bowl games in sports. He’s the CEO of Florida Citrus Sports, which runs Pop-Tarts and Cheez-It Citrus bowls, games that have been around for decades but have found new ways to become wildly popular.
Simply put, they are doing everything they can.
The Pop-Tarts Bowl leaned into the absurdity of its edible mascots and everything around them. The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl did the same with Prince Cheddward and the now-iconic snack sprinkle.
Other bowls have taken note, moving more and more towards fun, humor and spectacle. Hogan believes this approach is essential for their future.
“It’s a content factory, and you have to accept it that way,” he said. “Those are opportunities that you have to seize. That, content and fun, and you know social engagement, influencers, the whole gamut has to be a part of it.
“You see good football, but people are just having fun, and so I think that has to be the recipe for the future,” Hogan said.
Bowl committees are also considering other possibilities: a larger pool of potential teams, greater involvement from sponsors, shorter trips for participants and additional incentives. There is no shortage of ideas.
For now, however, they are largely hypothetical because bowling officials still don’t know what the sport’s biggest players will want.
“Everyone can throw out ideas, but I think until we have these conversations and see where everyone’s positions are, what’s important to them in the new iteration, it’s just too hypothetical,” Ramsey said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have control,” McGarity added. “We can advocate for it. We can talk to our peers about it. We can just illustrate how important and beneficial this is. But you don’t have control over it, so you just have to wait and see what the powers that be are, what they want to do, and then be able to respond to that. But you certainly can’t just sit back and wait and do nothing.”
All executives expect those conversations to intensify in the coming weeks and months, with Carparelli estimating everyone will know what next year’s bowling season will look like by early 2027.
Whatever happens, there will still be change.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Citrus Bowl and other major bowls routinely featured top 10 teams with records of 11-1 or 10-2. In the future, these matches could feature 8v4 or even 7v5 teams.
“We still believe there is a very successful bubble to play outside of the playoffs,” Hogan said. “I’m excited to see how we put them together, because I think that’s where we’re going to continue to have real success.”
With the eve of the regular season underway, bowling committees don’t want anyone planning theirs.
Even amid all the uncertainty, we are confident that the bowling season will survive.
It’s far from the end of eating the Pop-Tarts mascot or enjoying mayonnaise baths.
“It’s not going to be the last season of bowling as we know it. I mean, it’s going to be different, but again, the bowling system is going to continue,” Neville said. “No one celebrates college football better than bowl games.”
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