Gallery Furniture Owner Jim McIngvale said Tuesday that
his company "will be the title sponsor" of a college bowl
game in Houston "at a cost of" about $2M over four years,
according to Neal Farmer of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. The game
will be called the galleryfurniture.com Bowl and, "pending
NCAA certification," will debut December 26, 2000, in the
Astrodome, with hopes of "eventually" moving it to the
Houston NFL expansion team's stadium. But Farmer writes
that the new bowl game "faces many of the problems" the
Bluebonnet Bowl -- last played in '87 when it drew 23,282 --
"found to be insurmountable." One is a December 26 date
that "would require out-of-town fans to be away from home
for Christmas," which "may force the bowl to be dependent on
local ticket sales." While "no TV deal" is in place for
2000, talks are taking place with Fox, Turner and ESPN. The
game "has no conference tie-ins," but bowl promoter Jerry
Ippoliti "has talked with the commissioners of several
conferences," including the SEC, Big 12, Conference USA,
Mountain West and the WAC (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 12/15).
