The Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl

Congrats to the Central Michigan Chippewas on their victory over the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in this year's Pizza Bowl, played at Ford Field in Detroit. Yours truly has a long lost daughter out there lurking about somewhere who is an alumus of CMU. If she wasn't actually at the game, I have little doubt she was tuned in while clad in maroon and gold, or at least eating maroon and gold M&M's, and is whooping it up. Hail hail to brats and Chips, always a great combination, no pun intended. Well, maybe a little.

The Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl used to be called the Motor City Bowl, but the automobile industry around the Detroit area went in the tank many years ago. It's a skeleton of what it once was.

Enter Mike Ilitch, who not only was the founder of the Little Caesar's pizza empire, but currently owns both the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Red Wings. Ilitch has done a lot for certain neighborhoods in Detroit with his restoration projects, notably the "Fox" district, and certainly hasn't been a cheapskate when it comes to shelling out big bucks to obtain the players necessary to enable his teams to be in the hunt for championships. His Red Wings have won a few Stanley Cups, and the Tigers made it to the World Series last year.

A guy like Ilitch knows a lot about marketing his product, or he wouldn't be the billionaire he is. And that's where I think he missed a golden opportunity. Anyone that watched the Cent Mich/West Ken game on TV likely noticed there were thousands of empty seats. Yes, there was a snowstorm in progress at the time in the area, but since when would that keep dedicated fans from attending? If they really wanted to be there, they would have found a way.

All Ilitch had to do was further advertise what made him wealthy in the first place. Leading up to the game, he could have made it known to the public through the media that anybody that attended the contest would be treated to all the free Little Caesar's pizza they could eat inside the stadium. The concessionaires are already in place. What could that have cost him? Maybe a few hundred thousand -- tops. That's chump change to a billionaire, and his bean counters could write it off as advertisement or a charitable donation anyway.

At that, a few things seem ironic, especially regarding Central Michigan. They still proudly call themselves the Chippewas, but much has been made in recent years about such nicknames possibly being offensive to the history and descendants of the Native American tribes they were named after. One needs look no further than Eastern Michigan University, located in Ypsilanti, Mich. For many moons they were called the Hurons, but they came under "politically correct" fire and changed their name to the Eagles.

Yet the Chippewas of Mount Pleasant live on. Maybe that's because they have a gambling casino in that town that rakes in more millions than Ilitch, while being overseen (see big bucks) by the "natives". But it's called Soaring Eagle. Wait a minute -- Eagle? Shouldn't that be in Ypsilanti? Beats me. This can get confusing sometimes.

And given all the politically correct nonsense we're bombarded with these days -- when you figure out how the Washington Redskins, located in the most politically oriented town on the planet, haven't caught any flak yet -- let me know.