Bailouts, TARP…And Bowl Game Sponsorships?

One year ago this month, I opined about taxpayers footing the bill for several college football bowl games.  I decided to revisit the college football bowl scene and find out who’s sponsoring this year’s post-season gridiron clashes.

Perhaps most surprising among my findings is the fact that a UAW-General Motors entity, the UAW-General Motors Human Resources, is listed here as a sponsor, alongside Ford and a few other organizations, of the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl (formerly known as the Motor City Bowl) to be played at Ford Field in Detroit Dec. 26.

This sponsorship deal makes me wonder how many football fans of the matchup between Marshall University and Ohio University will spend halftime visiting this sponsor’s exciting web site.

The Eagle Bank Bowl is set for Dec. 29 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., and appears to be back stronger than ever in 2009. The bowl’s “strength”– not found in the battle between UCLA and Temple — could be due to the fact that it’s title sponsor, Bethesda, Md.-based Eagle Bancorp Inc., received $38.2 million via the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to a Wall Street Journal report early this year. [Note: From the strange-but-true department, the name of the bank's chairman and chief executive officer is -- drumroll, please -- Ron Paul.]

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