Participants in the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl aren’t exactly bowled over by the digital currency.

While BitPay, the so-called PayPal of bitcoin, used the digital currency to pay for its sponsorship of the Dec. 26 game, ESPN converted it to dollars immediately.

It apparently didn’t want to risk losing money by sitting on a currency that has had more ups and downs than a Coney Island roller-coaster.

The move by ESPN proved to be very smart.

Since the game, bitcoin has fallen 3.9 percent, to $314.59.

That means ESPN, if it sat on a $500,000 rights fee, it would have lost about $20,000 over seven days.

Each of the teams in the game — North Carolina State University of the Atlantic Coast Conference and the University of Central Florida of the American Athletic conference — got paid in cash.

Several reports maintained that the conferences had the choice of getting paid in bitcoin or dollars.

As the event’s owner, ESPN Events paid the game’s guarantees, just as it paid all other expenses associated with the Bitcoin Bowl’s production.

Yet not a single vendor eligible for payments from ESPN received bitcoin in return for its services.

But that’s not to say BitPay’s foray into football was all for naught.

St. Petersburg merchants were such boosters of the bowl that more than 100 of them geared up to accept bitcoin before kick-off. And, besides, there’s still two years to go.