This bowl season, bowl participants in the 39 featured games will receive over $5.4 million in gifts, according to the Sports Business Journal.
The NCAA allows each bowl to give out up to $550 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school. Beyond that 125 limit, schools are allowed to hand out additional gifts.
Interestingly enough, a whopping two-thirds of the bowls have opted for the popular gift suite/shopping spree approach, which is up from around 50% of teams that used that last bowl season.
One of the gifts making its debut this year is custom made Fatheads for each player (Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit) with themselves on it. I can imagine that one is going to be wildly popular among players. Also new this season is souvenier pylons, which is a rather interesting choice. Bowl gift mainstays (and sometimes head scratchers) like hair dryers, belt buckles, and winter coats and gloves also made the list again this year.
Absent from the list this year are the recliners, which seemed really popular last season, but may have been more trouble logistically than they were worth.
The only bowl game gifts not specified were what would be available to teams playing in the Championship game, which is kind of a bummer.
Personally, I think that the Quick Lane Bowl may have the best package available this year. That custom Fathead, plus $250 to spend on whatever you want at Best Buy is a pretty solid package to start with.
Here is a list of some of the more interesting items that will be available: