The EXTRA POINTS BOWL IS BACK

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Last year, we did something bold, and maybe a little bit stupid. We decided to sponsor a D-III college football bowl game.

The 2024 Extra Points Bowl, played at the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, was a major success. We got to see the Westminster Titans defeat the Marietta Pioneers, 27-13, in an entertaining and competitive game. And we also got to learn an awful lot about what goes into running a high level college sports event. That bowl game has informed how I cover sponsorships, neutral site games, the economics of D-III athletics, and more.

It was, without question, one of the highlights of my professional career.

But was it a one-off event? Something to do, just so we could say that we’re the only college sports newsletter to sponsor a bowl game?

No. We’re doing it again.

WE’RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE WE’LL BE BACK FOR THE 2025 EXTRA POINTS BOWL

Who will play in the Extra Points Bowl?

The Extra Points Bowl will feature two teams that did not qualify for the D-III football playoffs that hail from one of the four conferences affiliated with the Opendorse Bowl Series: the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference, the North Coast Athletic Conference, the Ohio Athletic Conference, and the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.

Last year’s Extra Points Bowl featured teams from the OAC and PAC. Given how difficult it is to qualify for the D-III playoffs, there are some very good football teams that will be participating in our game.

The exact conference pairings will be finalized at a later date, as to make an effort to avoid any regular season rematches for the postseason.

When and where is the Extra Points Bowl?

Both Opendorse Bowl Series games will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, on Nov. 22, 2025. Just like with last year, the Extra Points Bowl will be the second game of the day, currently scheduled for a 6 PM ET kickoff.

How can I watch the Extra Points Bowl?

If you live anywhere near Northeast Ohio, I’d love for you to be there in person! We’ll be giving away some tickets on the newsletter once we get closer to the game, but I can assure you, tickets will be reasonably priced for the entire family. We’ll have pre-sale information and other ticking info once we get closer to the game.

I’m told that the game will once again be broadcast on FloSports, so if you can’t make it to Ohio, you’ll still be able to catch the action.

Why are we doing this again?

There are a couple of reasons.

I legitimately care about D-III sports. I grew up in a NCAC market (Granville, Ohio, home of the Denison University Big Red), and spent much of my life around NCAC, OAC and PAC institutions. So much of the editorial coverage of Extra Points centers on schools outside the P4, and being a part of a postseason event for smaller colleges close to my heart gives us a chance to live our values. We want athletes to have memorable experiences at all levels, after all.

We also wanted to do this again so we can better understand how we can better support and improve the event from a year-to-year basis. If we were at least partially motivated to sponsor a bowl game so we could better understand how event management works, then we need a larger data sample than just one weekend.

I want to be clear about something. We don’t directly profit from this game. Extra Points gets exactly zero dollars in ticket sales, broadcast fees, or sponsorship packages. While we spent the money to buy the naming rights as part of our broader marketing strategy, and we’d love if our involvement led some D-II and D-III schools to buy subscriptions to the newsletter or Extra Points Library, anything directly raised from this game goes right back to the partner conferences.

How can we, the Extra Points reader, support the Extra Points Bowl?

Great question.

First, while we were blessed to have a great roster of supporting sponsors last year, and we hope to welcome as many of them back as possible, we would really love additional sponsorship help in two categories.

We’d love a sponsor to help step up with assist with food costs. A fast food place, local NE Ohio establishment or other entity that could help with providing meals to participating athletes, or a brand that is willing to put up cash to sponsor catering, would go a long way. We’ve got four football teams participating, and they’re full of hungry boys.

The other area is with bowl swag. It was awesome to have multiple media companies step up and offer free subscriptions to the participating teams. We still love that! But it would be even better if we could offer something beyond t-shirts to the participating players…like hats, water bottles, athletic clothing, video games, or any other kind of stuff.

If you’re a company that would like to support D-III athletics, and/or make sure your brand gets in front of thousands of athletes, administrators, parents, and fans of small college athletics, drop me an email at [email protected], and I’ll get you introduced to our outstanding college conference partners.

I’m more than happy to work with partners in other industries (graduate schools, travel agencies, sporting goods, newsletters, college sports B2B software, insurance, etc.). I just know that food and swag are of particular importance.

Beyond that, buying tickets, talking/tweeting about the games, and supporting your local D-III football team, will all go a long way to building a great season and event.

We can’t do stuff like this without your support. Your readership and subscriptions allows us to do stuff like support D-III football, write computer games, produce meaningful reporting, and make jokes online.

Thanks for your support. I’ll share more information as soon as I get it. But go ahead and mark those calendars! I’ll see you in Canton!

PS—If you are a paid subscriber to Extra Points and would like an Extra Points Bowl patch and some stickers, shoot me an email this week. If you are NOT a paid EP subscriber and would like them, I’ll mail them to you if you Venmo five bucks to Matt-Brown-EP. Or, you know, you could just subscribe to the newsletter :)