The easiest item to sell in Arizona besides air conditioning is a Fiesta Bowl ticket. That’s why John Junker, the Fiesta Bowl’s executive director, will be more concerned about national television appeal than a school’s ability to peddle tickets when he selects his teams Sunday.
“What we look at are business issues and what does the fan watching in Denver or Cleveland or St. Petersburg or Seattle or New York want, what’s compelling TV,” Junker said. “What is a football fan like you or me going to watch?”
Junker was at Stanford on Saturday night, where he and other Fiesta Bowl officials watched Notre Dame score in the final minute to beat the Cardinal 38-31. His comments suggest that, among the at-large teams available, Notre Dame would be the Fiesta’s slam-dunk first pick.
The Irish (9-2) are eighth in the Bowl Championship Series standings, behind No. 7 Oregon (10-1) and No. 6 Ohio State (9-2), but Notre Dame’s national appeal includes its own contract with NBC for televising home games. For this year’s six home games, the Irish averaged a 3.6 rating – the percent of all televisions in the country tuned to the game – an increase of 44 percent from last year and Notre Dame’s best rating in a decade.
Still, Junker would not commit until games this week are played. “Until we get through next week and see who wins the games and get all the information the following day,” he said.
BCS pairings are officially announced Sunday.
No. 1 Southern California (11-0) hosts No. 12 UCLA (9-1) in their regular-season finale Saturday while No. 2 Texas (11-0) meets Colorado (7-4) in the Big 12 championship game in Houston. USC is favored by 21 points, Texas by 27 1/2. An upset in either would send the dominoes falling in the BCS’ four-game format.
If Texas and USC win, they will meet in the Rose Bowl for the national title. Then comes the following selection order: First, Fiesta, which picks an at-large team or a conference champion not tied to a bowl; second, Orange, which picks an at-large team to play the Atlantic Coast champion; third, Fiesta, which picks another at-large team; fourth, Sugar, which picks the last available team against the Southeastern champion.
Oregon sent a large contingent to meet with Fiesta officials last Tuesday to argue its case.
“I’ll say this for Oregon,” Junker said. “They are a 10-win team. Is that convincing, clear definite evidence? No. There are other cases. Take Notre Dame-SC (USC won 34-31) and Oregon-SC (USC won 45-13). And no one’s talking about Auburn.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
