by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
While who might be playing in the Gator Bowl has yet to be decided, and may be decided in court, there was a clear answer to explain why the teams are picked to play in the Jan. 1 college football game.
Gator Bowl Association President Rick Catlett was the keynote speaker at a “Community Leader Forum” sponsored by law firm GrayRobinson at the River Club Wednesday and his normal educational speech about the Gator Bowl Association and its function included some current events.
“After the last couple of days, it may be appropriate that I’m here because I might need a lawyer,” said Catlett. “I’ve got a contract with the ACC that says one thing, and I got a conference telling me that it doesn’t and they are trying to do something different.”
The legal problem stems from the Gator Bowl Association’s selection of teams to play in its January game. Interest has peaked in the possibility of hosting Florida State University head coach Bobby Bowden’s last game at the Gator Bowl since the coach announced his retirement earlier this week. This interest comes a year after the Gator Bowl passed on FSU last year and invited Clemson and Nebraska.
“The bigger piece of what we do or what we are about is economic impact and development,” said Catlett. “The Gator Bowl Association really doesn’t have anything to do with sports. We use sports to raise our money, but the reality is it’s about business.”
It was this reasoning that lead the selection committee to pass on the Florida team and invite teams from farther away.
“If you run a business around here for the past two years, you know how difficult it has been,” said Catlett. “We had hotels, restaurants and bars on the verge of going broke. We had to do something to help our main customer, which is those businesses.”
Catlett explained that the GBA knew if it would have signed FSU-Nebraska that the game would have been a sell out, but the ticket sales wouldn’t have lead to a bigger economic impact.
“The unfortunate thing about that game is that the Florida State fans would have driven in for the game and they would have driven home after the game was over,” said Catlett. “They would not have had the hospitality impact that we needed to have. We took Clemson.”
Because of that choice, hotels reported more stays of four days instead of the normal two.
“I guess if you live in Nebraska, where it’s snowing, and you come to Jacksonville, where it’s 78 degrees, you are going to stay for the week,” said Catlett. “That was the reason we did what we did. We get criticized a lot of time for doing those kinds things, but weren’t not about trying to match up the two best teams we can get our hands on. The bowl system is not about that. The bowl system is about bringing in two good teams to allow the people of their area to watch good college football and at the same time have economic impact to their communities.”
Visit Jacksonville, the official travel information resource for the Jacksonville area, confirmed the benefit of last year’s Gator Bowl invitees.
“Last year was a great match-up,” said Lyndsay Rossman, senior director of corporate communications at Visit Jacksonville. “Clemson always travels well and Nebraska was so excited to get its first Gator Bowl bid. A game with FSU would be different this year, though. Being that it would be Coach Bowden’s last game, I expect fans would travel from all over the country to enjoy that experience.”
The Gator Bowl Association will officially announce its team selections Sunday.
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