There was huge news dropped on the college football world Friday as Brett McMurphy reported that the St. Petersburg Bowl has been renamed after picking up a new sponsor.
And what's that name you ask?
It's the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl.
Go ahead, don't just read those words in your head, say them out loud. I don't care if you're in the office, in a library, or even at a funeral. Just say the words "Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl" out loud so others can hear you and feel that tingle as the words roll off your tongue. You won't bother anyone, trust me. They want to hear it as badly as you want to say it.
It's a fantastic name for a bowl game. In fact, it might just be the greatest bowl name in the history of bowl names. I'm so excited about it that I scrapped my original plans for this week's Friday Five and decided I simply had to rank my five favorite things about the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl because there are just so many things about this bowl game that I'm excited about.
Honestly, limiting it to five things is going to be difficult, but they don't pay me to take the easy way out. I'm here to be the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl of CBS Sports.
So it's time to fulfill my destiny.
5. I'm just happy to know that Puff Daddy has diversified: I mean, just about every rapper in the world these days is starting their own clothing line or creating their own line of vodka or something. It's just what hip hop moguls have to do because it's so much more difficult to make the real money in music these days.
Puff did it all first, of course. He was branching out into all sorts of areas from the jump, and now he's heading down a new path entirely -- lawn mowers.
Talk about a left turn! Nobody saw that move coming, but being the visionary that he is, Puff the Magic Salesman is at it again. He's changed the game! And the commercial jingle? It's brilliant.
"We ain't, uh, mo-win' nowhere -- we ain't, mowin' nowhere -- we can't be stopped now, it's Bad - Boy - for - life."
That 90s nostalgia is huge right now, and Puff's playing right back into it. Bad Boy Mowers are going to be the Beats headphones of the lawn care industry. Pretty soon HBO is going to have to give Puff a five-episode documentary.
Listen, you can tell me Puff Daddy isn't the CEO of Bad Boy Mowers all you want, but I'm never going to believe you. And if you look within your heart, deep down, you don't want to believe it either.
4. We're finally going to see the fight for lawn care bowl sponsorship supremacy: Do you watch "Game of Thrones?" Of course you do. Everybody on the face of the Earth does.
Well, you've watched the show for seven seasons now, and that whole time you kept asking the same question: When the hell am I going to get to see these dragons tear things up? Sure, you've seen glimpses of their potential for destruction, but you wanted to see Dany riding one of those bad boy(mower)s into the middle of a battle, platinum blonde hair blowing in the breeze, and hell-fire raining down upon her enemies.
And you finally got to see it, and it was pretty awesome.
Well, for years I have seen the Poulan Weedeater Bowl reign over the lawn care bowl supremacy game unchallenged. It was boring. I mean, imagine what "Game of Thrones" would be like if Cersei Lannister was queen and everyone else in Westeros and Essos were just like "that's cool" and didn't want any power for themselves.
It would be an awful show, right?
But then a hero comes along. A hero named the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, and it wants the throne. And -- spoiler alert -- I think it's going to get it.
3. I get to learn about Gasparilla: After my initial fits of delight upon hearing of the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, there was a question kicking around the inside of my skull. What the hell is "Gasparilla?"
My initial thought was that it was like sarsaparilla but with gasoline in it. That sounds like a terrible drink, and I don't recommend anybody trying it. But then I thought "maybe it isn't meant to drink." Maybe, just maybe, Gasparilla is some kind of amazing fuel that saves the planet when it's used.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's something better.
It turns out Gasparilla is the nickname of Jose Gaspar, who is a fictional pirate that plundered the Gulf of Mexico and was based out of southwest Florida. He's also the inspiration for the Gasparilla Pirate Festival that's held every year in Tampa with the first one taking place all the way back in 1904.
So we're all learning a little something about make believe pirates here today, and it's important to learn. So thank you, Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl for teaching us all a little something.
2. It continues the tradition of the St. Petersburg Bowl having a fabulous name: The St. Petersburg Bowl is not old, but it has lived a hell of a life in its short time here on Planet College Football. It began in 2008 as the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl. I don't know who magicJack was, but after learning of Gasparilla, I'm starting to think he may have been a pirate.
That name lasted only one year, however, as the bowl became the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl in 2009 and remained so until 2013. Then it became the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl for a season in 2014.
The last two years it was just the plan St. Petersburg Bowl, but it turns out that the game was just giving us some time to ready ourselves for the glory of the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl.
The St. Pete Bowl may not always be a thriller, but it consistently delivers an amazing name.
1. A lawn mower company is sponsoring a football game played indoors on artificial turf: That's genius. Not only do you get your name out there, but you don't have to do any work in the process. The grass at Tropicana Field doesn't grow because it isn't grass. It's barely even artificial turf. It's basically green carpet.
This is next level stuff here, folks. The kind of thing none of us are intelligent enough to truly wrap our minds around.
We are in the presence of greatness, and I can't wait for the first Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl on Dec. 21, 2017.
