As the 2010 college football regular season wraps up, the postseason bowl schedule has quickly taken shape. This time of year, I get asked often to rank the bowl games. Which one is better than another?

    There’s no easy way to do this, but we can look at which bowls pay out more to the teams and conferences that participate. Keep in mind that these bowl payout figures are estimates, not exact numbers.

    At the top of the list is the five Bowl Championship Series games (the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and the BCS National Championship). All five of these games have an annual payout somewhere in the neighborhood of $17 million to $18 million. Not bad.

    The top bowl outside of the BCS has to be the Capital One Bowl. Formally known as the Citrus Bowl, the Capital One has the highest payout amount non-BCS bowls. The payout has been right at $4.25 million the last few years. In theory, it matches the No. 2 team out of the SEC versus the No. 2 team out of the Big 10. In reality, it matches this season’s SEC No. 4 (Alabama) versus Big 10 No. 3 (Michigan State).

    Right behind the Capital One are the Cotton Bowl and the Outback Bowl. Each one of these bowls pays in the neighborhood of $3.1 million to $3.5 million to the participant conferences. The Cotton Bowl traditionally matches the Big 12 No. 2 versus the SEC No. 3 or 4. In reality, this year’s Cotton Bowl matches up the Big 12 No. 5 (Texas A&M) versus the SEC No. 3 (LSU). It’s not an exact science, as you can tell since it up to the bowls to select matchups that are both intriguing to watch on television, and more importantly, ones that sell tickets. The Outback traditionally matches up the Big 10 No. 3 versus the SEC No. 3 or 4. In reality, it’s the Big 10’s No. 5 (Penn. State) versus the SEC’s No. 7 (Florida). Go figure.

    Next in line would be the Chick-fil-A Bowl (better known as the Peach Bowl). The interesting thing about the Chick-fil-A Bowl is that is actually pays more money to its ACC participant than it does to its SEC participant. Weird, I know. The ACC will receive somewhere around $3.25 million for this game while the SEC will only receive around $2.5 million for the same game. Feel free to email me if you know the reason behind this. The Chick-fil-A traditionally matches up the ACC’s No. 2 versus the SEC’s No. 5. This one is actually fairly accurate with Florida State versus South Carolina.

    Moving right along, the Gator Bowl would be the next one in terms of payout amount. The Gator payout is expected to be right around $2.75 million. It aims to match the Big 10’s No. 4 or 5 versus the SEC’s No. 6. This season, we’ve got the Big 10’s No. 7 team (Michigan) versus the SEC’s No. 6 team (Mississippi State).

    You might have noticed by now that all of these big-money, non-BCS bowls involve at least one Southeastern Conference team. That ends with our next bowl, the Insight Bowl. Last year’s Insight payout was right around $2.6 million, but this year’s estimate has been as high as $3.3 million, since the Insight Bowl increased its payout in order to move up in the bowl selection process. This year’s matchup features the No. 4 teams out of the Big 12 (Missouri) and the Big 10 (Iowa).

    It’s important to note that the payout amounts do not go directly to the participating schools. In almost all cases, the money is sent directly to the conferences and then distributed equally among all conference members. In other words, Vanderbilt makes just as much money off the Sugar Bowl as Arkansas. The main exception being an independent, such as Notre Dame, which gets to pocket the entire payout.

    This column is not long enough to detail all the bowl games on the schedule this season, but there’s a few more worth mentioning.

    The Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, a relatively new addition to the bowl landscape, will feature Southern Miss versus Louisville. This one yields a cool $1 million payout.

    The inaugural Pinstripe Bowl will feature a Big East team (Syracuse) versus a Big 12 team (Kansas State) with a $2 million payout. The game will be played at the new Yankee Stadium. There’s a Derek Jeter joke here somewhere, but I just can’t find it.

    This year’s Military Bowl features Maryland and East Carolina. Interestingly enough, neither one of these teams has anything to do with the military. Fortunately, this year’s Armed Forces Bowl (Army versus SMU) had enough to common sense to invite at least one military institute. Unfortunately for Army, the game is being played at SMU’s home stadium.

    This year’s Holiday Bowl features Nebraska versus Washington, two states that nobody wants to go to on their holiday.

    The 2010 GoDaddy.com Bowl features Middle Tennessee State versus Miami of Ohio. My suggestion would be to hire Danica Patrick to serve as the back judge during the game wearing her trademark GoDaddy tank top. Ratings would improve.

    Last and certainly least are the New Orleans Bowl and the New Mexico Bowl. The New Orleans Bowl is the baby of the bunch with a payout somewhere around $300,000. The game matches up Troy versus Ohio. The New Mexico Bowl payout is slightly higher, but matches up a 6-6 BYU versus a 6-6 UTEP. I’m thinking Troy and Ohio got the better deal in that one since they at least get to go to New Orleans.