The Jimmy Kimmel Bowl

College bowl games used to take their name mostly from commodities — sugar, cotton, oranges, peaches, etc. Later the names of corporate sponsors came into play — like Meineke Car Care, Little Caesars Pizza, Chik-fil-A, Reese’s, and Cheez It. In addition, bowls are sometimes named after cities, organizations (the Armed Forces Bowl), and concepts (the Liberty Bowl and the Independence Bowl).

However, I had never heard of a bowl game being named for a person until yesterday, when I watched a portion of the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl (Utah State vs. Oregon State).

During the telecast, I was informed there once was the Will Rogers Bowl. True story. It was played one time, in 1949 in Oklahoma City, between Pepperdine (then called George Pepperdine College) and Nebraska Wesleyan.

There are at least two differences between the Will Rogers Bowl and Jimmy Kimmel’s. First, Will Rogers was funny. Second, Rogers was dead when the Will Rogers Bowl was held. He died in 1935.

Perhaps next year, there will be a Greg Gutfeld Bowl. Gutfeld is crushing Kimmel in the ratings. As best I can tell, his audience is around two million nightly. Kimmel apparently trails not only Gutfeld but also Steven Colbert and Jimmy Fallon.

Kimmel made his obligatory appearance in the broadcast booth during part of the third quarter. He didn’t say anything remotely funny. Gutfeld would have been considerably more entertaining.

But I guess he doesn’t need a college football game to boost his ratings. Or his ego.

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