'It's a good recipe for a good experience': Bowl Season meetings converge on El Paso

The NCAA's network of 43 FBS bowls is a unique format in sports, there is no other postseason at any level quite like it.

That makes working for the bowls, or selling merchandise to them, a distinctly different profession as well, and once a year people connected to the 43 bowls get together to talk about it.

This year, they are doing that in El Paso. Five years ago the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl and El Paso won a bid to host the 2024 Annual Bowl Season Meetings, which means 350 people from around the country have converged on the El Paso Convention Center for three days, ending Wednesday.

"What the people who work for bowl games do is very unique," said Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season. "There's not a lot of people who do what they do so the chance to be around each other at this meeting is really valuable.

"It's the only time where everybody who works for a bowl and does business for a bowl come together in the same place. We have panel discussions, group break-out meetings and guest speakers, and there's a lot of networking all taking place, right here in El Paso."

This obviously is another feather in the cap of the Sun Bowl, which coincidentally is coming off the great victory of landing Notre Dame for 2023's 80th edition of the game. That ended up being a quick sellout and gave the bowl plenty of momentum to bring to these meetings.

"Having this convention come to El Paso is great for our city and great for the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl," executive director Bernie Olivas said. "I've been doing this for 24 years and this is the first time we've had this convention here.

"This convention draws all 43 bowls, the directors and their staffs, so we have close to 400 people come to El Paso for these three days to talk about college football and talk about the bowl games. I'm very excited we won the bid to have the convention here and I think people are having a great time."

Count Valero Alamo Bowl president and CEO Derick Fox as one of those having fun.

"It's great to be out here in a wonderful city," Fox said. "It's a chance for all of us in the bowl industry to get together and talk about best practices, experiences of last year, what's going on in college athletics and how we can be out front of some of the changing landscape that's going on."

John Cooperstein is director of sports for Pac Sports in the Dallas suburb of Carrolton, the company that does about 80% of the bowl gift suites, including the one for the Sun Bowl. He uses the convention as a chance to network with the bowls and was elated when this edition was sent to El Paso. He is close friends with Olivas.

"It's always neat to have everybody get together," Cooperstein said. "You renew acquaintances, do some business and it's in a place that's conducive to having a good time. There are a lot of great places in El Paso, the people are super friendly, this set up is great, the convention center and the hotel.

"It's a good recipe for a good experience."

Tuesday afternoon he was talking with Oregon associate athletic director Aaron Wasson.

"I'm meeting with bowl reps, bowl staffs to talk about the gifting process from the team perspective," Wasson said. "When teams go to bowl sites the bowls take care of them with a lot of gifts, apparel, equipment and bags. I'm connecting with them from the team side of things on how to streamline."

That's the theme of the week.

"It's a lot of sharing of ideas, best practices and seeing what's best for the bowl games," Olivas said. "There's a lot of vendors, a lot of panelists who present us with ideas that make the bowls better.

"We'll finish it Wednesday night with a big celebration of El Paso and send everybody home."

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Bowl Season meetings converge on El Paso with all 43 bowls