[winflop]

There's a lot of questionable stuff on bowl selections in this thread. 

The conference chooses the bowl selections (as Spiny noted). 

This is incorrect. The bowls choose the teams, there is a draft order, and a bowl can choose any team within one win/loss of the "best available" team.

Other than Big Game outcome, the biggest wild card seems to be whether Wazzu gets an NY6 bid or not. If they do, then Stanford (and other teams) naturally move up a slot. Of course if we don't retain the Axe then we are looking squarely at Las Vegas or worse.

Bowl games make a lot of their money off TV but they also get a cut of tourism-related revenue especially hotels. It's not just tickets and game concessions. So it does matter which teams they pick. They will favor the teams who they think will bring the most to the local economy.

[winflop]

There's a lot of questionable stuff on bowl selections in this thread. 

The conference chooses the bowl selections (as Spiny noted). 

This is incorrect. The bowls choose the teams, there is a draft order, and a bowl can choose any team within one win/loss of the "best available" team.

Other than Big Game outcome, the biggest wild card seems to be whether Wazzu gets an NY6 bid or not. If they do, then Stanford (and other teams) naturally move up a slot. Of course if we don't retain the Axe then we are looking squarely at Las Vegas or worse.

Bowl games make a lot of their money off TV but they also get a cut of tourism-related revenue especially hotels. It's not just tickets and game concessions. So it does matter which teams they pick. They will favor the teams who they think will bring the most to the local economy.