Notre Dame a possibility for Yankees' bowl game
Photo credit: AP Photo/Stephen Chernin | Dan Beebe, left, Big 12 Conference commissioner, listens as John Marinatto, Big East Conference commissioner, speaks at a press conference, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009 at Yankee Stadium in New York. The NCAA college football conferences and the New York Yankees announced on Wednesday that they have agreed to a four-year deal to play the first bowl in the Bronx since 1962. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)
Big 12, Big East in Bowl Game at Yankee Stadium
With a lot of blanks still to be filled in, the Yankees Wednesday announced agreements to stage what they called a "major" college football bowl game on an annual basis, beginning in late 2010 and matching middle- and lower-level teams from the Big East and Big 12 conferences.
The name of the bowl, the broadcasting partner, the price of tickets and actual date of the game - officials are aiming for Christmas week and possibly New Year's Day - all remain unsettled.
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said a "tremendous" commitment by the Yankees helped persuade his conference members to restructure their lineup of eight bowls and drop the Independence Bowl, based in Shreveport, La., to add the new event at Yankee Stadium. Though he wouldn't reveal a specific figure, Beebe confirmed the Yankees promised a guarantee higher than the Independence Bowl, which had a total payout of $1.1 million last year.
In the tightly choreographed invitation process, conferences are locked into a pecking order of bowls based on league standings, which would leave the new Yankee Stadium bowl with either the third- or fourth-place team from the Big East against the seventh-place team from the Big 12.
Because NCAA rules require that a team have at least six victories to be "bowl eligible," the failure of a Big East or Big 12 team to qualify for the Yankees' bowl would open the door for a Notre Dame appearance, if the Irish are not already invited to another bowl.
"The fact that Notre Dame has committed to be a third partner, a school steeped in tradition attaching itself to a new bowl, says a lot," said Mark Holtzman, the Yankees director of program development and the new bowl's executive director.
Officials noted that theirs would be the first college bowl game in the metropolitan area since 1981, when the last of four Garden State Bowls was played at Giants Stadium, and the first in the city since the 1962 Gotham Bowl at Yankee Stadium, matching Nebraska and Miami. They did not mention that the '62 game was played in 17-degree weather and sold only 6,166 tickets.
Yankee Stadium's possibility of staging the NHL's annual New Year's Day Winter Classic, meanwhile, appears to be pre-empted by the football bowl plans because of the approximately six days needed to set up a hockey rink outdoors. "We're in constant contact with the NHL," Yankees president Randy Levine said. "We'd love to do hockey as well. We're not in the mix; if they're interested, they'll call us."
