This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 6, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Big Bowl Games will be televised and because taxpayers like you are subsidizing most of them,

we should make sure and watch them.

That according to Neil McCluskey, Associate Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.

Everybody should watch the National College Football Championship because whether you're interested or not you are paying for it.

What are the most egregious cases of bowl games being subsidized?

Well there are numerous bowl games that are subsidized. Well, there are numerous bowl games that are subsidized directly.

Maybe one of the best known ones and most expensive is the Sugar Bowl, which is held in New Orleans and has gotten millions and millions of dollars over the years and subsidies to keep it in New Orleans.

But many cities provide either direct subsidies or various incentives to the bowls and the corporations that run them to keep them in

their cities.

And that's really the most direct way in which people are paying for bowl games is either

through tax breaks for these bowls, direct subsidies

to the bowls, subsidies that go to maintain or to improve stadiums for the bowls.

These are all coming from taxpayers who may have

zero interest in college football.

Might even find it boring.

It doesn't matter.

They are going to be paying for these bowls whether they like it or not.

What are some of the requirements that universities have when it comes to participating in bowl games?

The minimum payout is $750,000 to the university for participating in a bowl game, but what

are universities on the hook for when they go?

Now we get to start to really peel the onion to see what really goes into college

...