What's the point of playing postseason football if you ain't gonna get bomb-ass free shit, right? Player participants in each and every bowl game are given fantastic gifts paid for by the bowls' respective sponsors as a sort of "thank you for your amateur athletic pursuits off of which we are reaping crazy profits." In 2008, Ole Miss players received flat screen TV's from the Cotton Bowl committee, on which they were certainly playing Madden while cavorting with women of ill refute watching Planet Earth while getting very, very high learning about our Earth and her delecately balanced biological systems. Strikethrough jokes are overdone.
That gift was fantastic, but what will they get this year?
Rumors have already been circling and some of the SWAG these bowls are handing out is going to really excite these players. For example, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl has recently agreed to give all of this year's Fiesta bowl participants coupons for a lifetime supply of Tostitos scoops!
Chips!
One Man to Beat learned of this fantastic gift and promptly shot an email around the Red Cup Rebellion Google Group (Google: helping bloggers get things done since 1996...oh, and adderol too.) where we all then contributed our knowledge of the upcoming bowl games and the SWAG we most assuredly know they are giving out. We left out all room for snarky commentary and outlandish guessing so we could now bring you a completely accurate list of bowl SWAG for the upcoming college postseason.
The Fiesta Bowl - On top of the aforementioned free lifetime supply of Tostitos Scoops (Fried corn! Yay!), the Boise State and TCU players will be re-gifted the same exact shit they were given during last year's Poinsettia Bowl. Thanks, BCS.
Maaco Las Vegas Bowl - Oregon State and BYU will receive the luxury of 15 gallons of paint thinner left over from a winter special gone awry. Uh oh, better win your big games. The players will also likely accrue large debts and a diagnosis of two or more STD's, but the bowl committee won't have anything to do with those gifts.
Little Caesars Bowl - Marshall and Ohio get to play this wonderful bowl in the lovely city of Detroit. Residents of the city have promised not to let their soul-crushing unemployment and horribly losing professional teams rub off on them. Also, being as how the bowl committees are required to limit the value of their gift packages to $500 per player, each athlete will get one hundred hot-n-ready pepperoni pizza coupons. Don't either one of you bicker about this. Especially you, 6-6 Marshall. Shut your slut mouths, now.
PapaJohns.com Bowl - Probably more pizza. Fucking get over it. Y'all are in college.
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl - A free trip to fabulous Hawaii! What's that? You wanna know where it is? The state or the.. You're talking about the free trip? The hell do you mean kid, you're on Oahu right the fuck now. Yes, here. At this horrible football game.
Cotton Bowl - [RACIST JOKE REDACTED] C'mon Juco. Keep it PC, will ya? Also, regardless of whatever "gifts" the players are getting, they'll somehow end up with a $500 invoice for them. That damned Jerry Jones. Slipperier than an eel I say.
Brut Sun Bowl - Stanford and Oklahoma will have the pleasure of being haunted for the rest of their lives by the ghost of Jack Palance, former badass and Brut spokesman(aka: Curly from City Slickers or that skeleton guy)(ed: yeah, I don't get it either).
Roady's Humanitarian Bowl - Roady's, a large chain of truckstops with locations throughout the nation, will offer the athletes from Idaho and Bowling Green $100 dollar gift cards, redeemable at any Roady's location! Here the players will be able to stock up on airbrushed license plate holders, burnt coffee, caffiene pills, glow-in-the-dark condoms, and DVDs from a bin whose selection is just a tidge out of date.
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl - FSU and West Virginia receive old sepia-toned photographs of Bobby Bowden's first coached game circa 1886. Also included are three disposable cameras from a wedding that are already used. In addition, the players are rumored to be receiving t-shirts that say "I spent a weekend in Tampa and all I got was this horrible lapse in my memory from some weekend I supposedly spent in Tampa." It's the city that nobody remembers, folks.
Orange Bowl - "Gifts?! We let IOWA into the fucking ORANGE BOWL, now you want GIFTS!?"
The New Orleans Bowl - The gift from this bowl committee, a group of people who decided to pit the Southern Miss Golden Eagles against the MTSU Blue Raiders, will be a written apology to all fans of college football and competitive athletics in general.
Have you any bowl SWAG to share?
ED: We started this before a list of gifts bowl committes were willing to share with the media was released. Click it for the real deal. Come back when you're done being unamused.