Closing Shot: Welcome To Bowl Season

College football fans don’t have to wait until the holidays to open this annual gift. It’s bowl season and for three glorious weeks, 43 games will be delivered, starting Dec. 16 with the Myrtle Beach Bowl and ending with the CFP National Championship on Jan. 8 in Houston.

Seven bowl games get things rolling o n Dec. 16, kicking off at 11 a.m. ET from Myrtle Beach (Georgia Southern vs. Ohio), with the final game (Cal vs. Texas Tech) of the day getting underway at 9:15 p.m. in the Independence Bowl. The FCS Celebration Bowl (Howard vs. Florida A&M) also happens that day.

All but three of the FBS bowl games this season will appear on ESPN platforms, and the media company operates 17 of the events itself.

That puts Amanda Gifford, vice president of production of ESPN, front and center. She oversees college football event productions, which not only includes the CFP, but more than a thousand regular-season and bowl games. The seven games on the opening day of bowl season is a relative walk in the park for the production team. That’s fewer than what ESPN platforms typically produce on a Saturday during college football season. In fact, ESPN’s linear networks carried 18 on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

“Bowl games are a great opportunity to celebrate a fantastic season,” Gifford said. “That’s what we do with our broadcast crews and hopefully the schools do as well so we can tap into that excitement and enthusiasm. I think this year is a great opportunity to tell so many stories that have permeated throughout the college football season.”

With ESPN leading the way from the start to finish of bowl season, the goal is to build momentum heading toward the playoffs and the championship.

“We have a strategy of getting people to the next bowl game,” Gifford said. “What’s the next game up that people need to know about, but also reminding them as we look further ahead to the New Year’s Six bowls, the college football semifinals, to remind people what’s coming up later in the bowl season.”

Then there are the storylines about th e players themselves, including those who decide to skip their team’s bowl game or enter the transfer portal and can’t play. “We know that’s always going to be a talking point for the announce team, whether or not people are playing, the transfer portal, all that will certainly be a part of the broadcast. But that’s more a production meeting and talking about the different storylines.”

One could forgive the ESPN crew for looking ahead to the 2024 season. That’s when ESPN assumes rights to the SEC and when the CFP expands to 12 teams. When this year’s slate of games is finished, ESPN production crews, directors and talent will huddle to go over what they liked and what could be improved in 2024 and beyond. “We have a lot to prepare for,” Gifford said.

But for now, the focus is on Dec. 16 and the rest of this year’s bowl season. As for Gifford, is there one game that she will be paying more attention to? For the Penn State grad, the answer is simple: Peach Bowl, Dec. 30, Ole Miss vs. Penn State.

Said Gifford: “I’m on the record saying college football is my favorite sport.”