Get Your Swag On

An iPod Touch, a $420 Best Buy gift card, and a pair of new Oakley Sunglasses. No that's not my Christmas list. That's just a sample of the things you could get if you were an FBS football player in a bowl game this year in the "swag bag."

The gifts that players get from the bowl games, or swag, have come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days of cheap watches and t-shirts. Now it's shopping sprees at Best Buy, various electronics, and expensive apparel.

What you get from the bowl game changes depending on what game you are going for, and the better the game the better the gifts. If you're going to the New Orleans Bowl all you get is an iPod Touch and a ring. On the other hand the BCS games are a completely different story if you're a team like Wisconsin.

The Badgers are only getting to go to the "gift suite," but the treasures in the suite are more than just an iPod Touch. More like $500 of goodies packed into one room that 125 members of the team get to pick through before heading to Pasadena.

Then tack on a few more bucks that the universities can give to the players to spoil themselves, and you have a big shopping spree. One that could rival any teenage girls dream...at least with daddy's credit card.