Buzz Your Girlfriend

December 8th, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^

Well, the easy answer is that these items are OKed by the NCAA. Athletes get great accomodations when they travel, or by the AD, just as long as its cleared by the NCAA. Think of how much food is given to the football team when they celebrate Thanksgiving together or when they go to a hotel for fall practice and get all of their meals paid for while they are there. There is a certain limit in place.

go16blue

December 8th, 2011 at 4:49 PM ^

They are not given out by schools or organizations affiliated with schools, so they're ok by the NCAA. The only reason this could be a problem is if the Rose Bowl (or any bowl with conference affiliations) started giving out cars or something, making recruits more likely to join those conferences. But I think there's a limit on the gift value to stop things like this.

Killewis

December 8th, 2011 at 3:15 PM ^

"Gift suites are set up as private events in which game participants, and often bowl VIPs, are given an order form and allowed to select a gift, or gifts, up to a value that is predetermined by each specific bowl, not to exceed the NCAA limit of $550 per person."

hart20

December 8th, 2011 at 3:24 PM ^

R+L Carriers Bowl gives a Samsung Galaxy tablet.

Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl gives a PS3 and some Oakley stuff

Military Bowl gives an Amazon Kindle Fire, an iPod Nano, and some other stuff

Champs Sports Bowl gives $420 at Best Buy and a watch.

Alamo Bowl gives $400 at Best Buy, a watch, and some other stuff.

A bunch of bowls gave out watches for some reason...

qed

December 8th, 2011 at 5:15 PM ^

With all the complaining in East Lansing, I think sparty clearly has the best gifts: $150 bestbuy gift card, a watch, Outback Steakhouse gift card.  They can buy a DVR to tape the Rose Bowl that they're missing.