Do you know that in the 40 bowl games this year there are several teams with losing records? It’s true, it’s true!

There are 127 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, which means only about a third will miss out on the headphones, sunglasses, watches, gift cards and whatever else is stuffed into those goodie bags.

There are so many bowl games the NCAA had to amend its rules — again — just so there’d be enough teams to fill all of them. Long gone are the days when teams had to have seven wins to earn a trip to a bowl game. Now you don’t even need a winning record.

It’s so bad, in fact, that more than a dozen teams with records of .500 or below “earned” the privilege of playing in the postseason. Of those, three are 5-7. But hey, they were selected based on their Academic Progress Rate, so that makes it all OK.

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With the exception of the biggies — Citrus, Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Outback, Peach, Rose and Sugar — bowl games exist solely to provide programming for the broadcast partners of the NCAA and its conferences. The stadium can be half-empty and it won’t matter so long as the TV cameras are rolling and the rights fees have been paid.

The same universities who are crying poor over paying the full cost of attendance happily go along with the charade and expense of these meaningless games because it gives them bragging rights. Who cares that no one knows what or where the Belk Bowl is? If the alums and donors are happy and proud, they’re more likely to keep writing those big, fat checks.

And about those rights fees: take note that only four of these games are on network television. The rest, including the College Football Playoff semifinals and final, are on cable. That means some percentage of Americans won’t have access to those games in their own homes. I hope they drive safely on their way home those nights.