Fort Worth, El Paso, Mobile and Boise are homes to four of the 28 college football bowl games. 56 of the 217 teams in NCAA Division-IA are playing. With names like that on the bowl slate, one might think St. Louis, with its large dome would be as good a candidate to host a bowl as the other locales mentioned. But the question is: does St. Louis want a bowl? “Unless we can produce a marquee match up it’s something that we’re going to just continue to look at, as opposed to something we’re going to act on,” according to Frank Viverito President of the St. Louis Sports Commission. A few years ago the Commission did a study to look at the feasibility of a bowl game in St. Louis. That study found that the local interest of a lower-tier bowl game—one that would pit lower ranked teams in major conferences or high ranked teams in smaller conferences—wouldn’t be that great and probably wouldn’t make much money. Since all the major bowls aren’t moving, the best the city could hope for would be for one of the smaller bowls to relocate. However, if a person or organization was interested in putting their financial muscle behind it, then there would be more interest in a bowl in the Gateway City, according to Jack Croghan, director of development and sports/entertainment for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, the company which oversees the Edward Jones Dome. He said, “That’s about million-and-a-half dollars, at minimum, from a financial guarantee. Then maybe there’s some room for us down the line to look at an attraction of a bowl game.” But besides the financial aspects of a bowl, Viverito said that St. Louis has worked hard over the last ten years to host only top-notch events. St. Louis has already hosted the NCAA Men’s basketball regional, the NCAA Women’s Final Four and the NCAA Wrestling Championships.. The city will also be putting on the Men’s Final Four in 2005, the Women’s Final Four in 2009 and a men’s regional in 2007. Viverito says a small bowl just doesn’t live up to expectations, “The events that we’ve done in the past really gave us a significant taste of the level and the type of event that we’d like to see here in St. Louis.” If the NCAA ever decides to adopt a post-season tournament, Viverito said the St. Louis Sports Commission would have interest, “I don’t want to pass judgment on the whole world of college football but in specific terms it might be more meaningful for us to have a first round NCAA Division IA playoff game than it would be to have a lesser bowl.”