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the football scholarship as an essential element in their system.

As commercial air travel increased during the 1960's, the illicit activity mushroomed and the NCAA Enforcement Committee struggled to keep pace. Legendary coaches like Bud Wilkinson and Bear Bryant, as well as a legion of Southwest Conference coaches and administrators have been regularly identified in their role within a mountain of recruiting violations and scandals beginning in the early days of the sport and climaxing well into the CFA era in college football. Again, not much has changed. The theme of the day, very much like today, is mistrust and ambivalence towards like mindedness, fair play and regulations.

Over the course of the next 25 years the bowl games evolved from post-season games, considered separate and irrelevant to the regular season, into a spectacle of games that culminated the regular season. The bowls, once played after the national championship was determined by voted polls, were now being played to help determine the final polls and the national champion.

Meanwhile, a handful of the nation's most prominent college football programs gradually stood out from the crowd, garnering more recognition, clout, and television exposure than most other programs. An elite class was established, capable of generating more money than their peers, and thus, rewarded with special treatment by the bowls and networks.

Energized by the popularity and emergence of television, the medium created a special brand or identity for certain schools and significantly promoted the match-ups between the power schools by tabbing them as rivalry games.

Notre Dame, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Auburn prospered from this elite branding and special identity promoted by the networks. The rivalry games between Notre Dame-USC, Alabama-Auburn, Nebraska-Oklahoma, Arkansas-Texas and USC-UCLA captured and branded college football in the minds of many a generation. Thus, these teams enjoyed special privilege's, (especially within the poll rankings and bowl invitations) and were financially rewarded with bigger bowl pay outs.

Although the NCAA over regulated and controlled both price and output of regular season television contracts, the bowls operated in a free market environment and could bid and pay higher sums to attract the elite teams. In the early era of the bowls between 1950 and 1960, there were as few as 18 bowl events.

Initially, each bowl negotiated participation

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