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And the conferences and member schools, of course.  They could end it all by just saying no.  But that's not ever going to happen.

This brings up an interesting dichotomy...

I recall stories from even a decade or more ago about how bad minor bowls were financially for the schools. Essentially the bowls would bend the schools over a barrel with things like forced ticket purchases, which often couldn't be resold to students/fans at face value meaning it was just a money sink. Then there was all the travel, hotels, etc. Not only was it obviously for the team, coaches, and football staff, but it includes the band, and probably a bunch of various administrative personnel who get taken out there like it's some sort of junket. The stories basically said that a minor bowl was a money-loser for the school. 

But for the conference, it's not. The conference rakes in a bunch of money from the bowls but doesn't have to fund the school's participation. That money gets disbursed to schools even if they didn't get into a bowl--I don't know how much, but I'm sure Purdue is getting money based on Indiana's bowl/CFP success this year lol. So for the conferences, bowl participation is a moneymaker--hence why teams that turn down bowl invites get fined by their conference for doing so. I'm sure for many of them, the fine they have to pay is smaller than the amount of money they'd lose by participating.

I think for a long time, there was still some halo around bowls that the schools themselves thought the prestige, the additional practices for the team, and the reward to the players at the end of a year was worth it, despite losing money. But now in the world of transfer portals and opt-outs where you don't know how many of your players will participate and how many of them will be on your team 2-3 weeks later when the portal opens, and I think the schools are slowly starting to get closer to saying no. But the conferences want to keep this gravy train running as long as they can. 

This brings up an interesting dichotomy...

I recall stories from even a decade or more ago about how bad minor bowls were financially for the schools. Essentially the bowls would bend the schools over a barrel with things like forced ticket purchases, which often couldn't be resold to students/fans at face value meaning it was just a money sink. Then there was all the travel, hotels, etc. Not only was it obviously for the team, coaches, and football staff, but it includes the band, and probably a bunch of various administrative personnel who get taken out there like it's some sort of junket. The stories basically said that a minor bowl was a money-loser for the school.

But for the conference, it's not. The conference rakes in a bunch of money from the bowls but doesn't have to fund the school's participation. That money gets disbursed to schools even if they didn't get into a bowl--I don't know how much, but I'm sure Purdue is getting money based on Indiana's bowl/CFP success this year lol. So for the conferences, bowl participation is a moneymaker--hence why teams that turn down bowl invites get fined by their conference for doing so. I'm sure for many of them, the fine they have to pay is smaller than the amount of money they'd lose by participating.

I think for a long time, there was still some halo around bowls that the schools themselves thought the prestige, the additional practices for the team, and the reward to the players at the end of a year was worth it, despite losing money. But now in the world of transfer portals and opt-outs where you don't know how many of your players will participate and how many of them will be on your team 2-3 weeks later when the portal opens, and I think the schools are slowly starting to get closer to saying no. But the conferences want to keep this gravy train running as long as they can.

I believe the SEC splits the bowl revenue share equally amongst the member schools, so it makes sense to me that if you are taking money out of the trough, then you'd get fined.

If they really wanted them all to participate, they'd forego the opt out school's bowl money distribution at the end of bowl season.

Maybe they do?  I don't know.

I'd be hard pressed to find someone that loves college football more than me, and I still can't believe the ratings for the trash bowl games.  It has to be for lack of anything else to watch.  You can only watch Christmas Vacation so many times between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I suppose.

I think it's also a matter of a lot of the games being on weekdays during morning/afternoon hours right in the middle of that holiday stretch, especially in the new WFH world. 

My company gave us the three days during Christmas week (Mon/Tue/Fri) as additional days off above the official holidays on Wed/Thu this year. We technically worked every day during NY week except the Thursday holiday, but everyone who can work remote, did. And it was a very quiet week (which was useful for getting stuff done instead of being interrupted by meetings). 

That gave me a lot of time that I could be "watching" bowl games--even if I wasn't really actively paying much attention. And I mean that re: not paying attention, I was probably watching them in the background even on the days that I was officially off work. And like you say, it's weekdays, often during the daytime, when there is literally nothing else compelling on the tube. I mean, I don't particularly like watching Stephen A yell at guests or Pat McAfee do whatever it is he does, and I certainly don't tune to soaps in the afternoon. So if there's a bowl game on, it's on the TV. 

So yeah, they're trash bowl games, but they still bring in the viewers compared to anything else on TV in those segments. They're not really competing with much of anything else for the sports fans of the world for ratings. 

It wouldn’t benefit many (any) folks to just end it suddenly, so probably not much reason to.

Well sure.  That's the point.  They still make money for the conferences and thus for the member schools, so why would anyone vote to cancel?

Just because some weirdos on a message board complain that "there are too many bowl games?"  That's obviously not compelling...

That might sum it up.

It seems like the folks most against bowls are some cluster of fans, coaches subtly and some teams that just don’t feel like it.

And even that last group can be weird. I talked to someone who works for a team and said the group really didn’t want to be there. But they still played an entertaining game and had a key player fight through injury in maybe his last college game?

Yeah I gotta think that seniors with few or zero pro prospects, probably don't mind playing in the bowl games.