The Camellia Bowl exists because the Sun Belt and the Mid-American Conferences asked for it. The leagues, which compete below the football food chain from their counterparts in the Southeastern and Big Ten Conferences, coveted more bowl tie-ins, and they saw in ESPN a way to get one. ESPN now owns 11 of the Football Bowl Subdivision’s 39 bowl games, and broadcasts all but a few of them.

“It was in response to a very easy need,” said Karl Benson, the Sun Belt commissioner. “If you look at the number of new bowl games created in the last 18 months, they’ve all been done to accommodate the conferences that have been underserved by the bowl system.”

The five new bowls — the Camellia and others in Detroit, Miami, Boca Raton, Fla., and the Bahamas — are unlikely to become historic institutions or add much weight to any record books.

“I am not a fan of the expansion of the bowls because it rewards mediocrity and they are often a money-losing proposition for the school,” said David Ridpath, an assistant professor of sports administration at Ohio University. “People can talk about exposure, funding, enrollment, etc., but very little of that, if any, really happens.”