Las Vegas Bowl plans to drop Mountain West as affiliate in 2020
By Zach Bigalke
Since 1992, the Las Vegas Bowl has hosted the Big West, WAC, and Mountain West. Beginning in 2020, the bowl will ditch its longtime Group of Five status.
The postseason in college football has always been dictated by money. Bowl games are founded and bowl games fold based on the whims of the almighty dollar. And a big part of whether a bowl game thrives or merely survives comes down to the conferences with which it is affiliated.
The Las Vegas Bowl has served for its entire existence as a destination for western mid-majors. Founded in 1992, the Las Vegas Bowl originally formed as a place for Big West champions to play. In the late 1990s, the game shifted to the WAC. By the beginning of the 21st century, its affiliations had shifted to the newly-formed Mountain West Conference.
Since 2001, the Mountain West played a Pac-12 opponent in the Las Vegas Bowl. The game afforded the MWC its only chance to play a major-conference opponent in the postseason outside of a potential BCS bowl or New Year’s Six berth.
So why shift away from the Mountain West?
With the Oakland Raiders relocating to Las Vegas, the city is constructing a new stadium. This venue will also become the host of the Las Vegas Bowl beginning in 2020. With the move, the bowl game will leave behind Sam Boyd Stadium. And with the shift to new digs, the bowl is seeking new and improved partners to boost its profile in the bowl pecking order.
With the renegotiation of bowl affiliations in 2020, it affords the Las Vegas Bowl the perfect timing to shift its focus. The game will remain affiliated with the Pac-12 and will seek to pair with another Power Five member.
Many are already dreaming about the guarantee of bringing together the Pac-12 and the SEC in a bowl game annually. The two conferences have no current bowl tie-ins against one another. The last time the two leagues met in a non-BCS/non-New Year’s Six bowl game was the 1989 Freedom Bowl between Washington and Florida.
There is precedent for SEC schools playing in the game. Arkansas lost to UNLV 31-14 in the 2000 edition. In the process, revenues would increase as ESPN could charge higher advertising fees. The game would probably move later in the bowl schedule, and the payout would at least double from its current $1.4 million per team.
How will this impact the Mountain West?
For the Mountain West, losing its affiliation with the Las Vegas Bowl is going to be costly. The loss leaves the MWC with only five bowl affiliations. Now the league will scramble to try to pick up another bowl tie-in with a Power Five opponent.
But that is hardly a given, considering the efforts to consolidate opportunities for Power Five teams to play one another. The Mountain West will now depend even more heavily on contending for the Group of Five’s spot in a New Year’s Six bowl.
With two more seasons left in the game, the Mountain West will look to win its last two opportunities in the Las Vegas Bowl. It could ultimately afford the last few opportunities to square off in the postseason against major-conference competition for a while.
The shifting allegiances of the Las Vegas Bowl offer an instructive tale about the future of the college football postseason. The power conferences are going to try to maximize their showcase opportunities against one another at the expense of mid-major bowl guarantees.
Next: Post-spring Top 25 projections
The Mountain West, one of the strongest mid-major leagues of the 21st century, fell victim to the economics of the sport. If the MWC can suffer that fate, every other Group of Five conference could see its opportunities dissolve as well.