These non-playoff bowl games are just meaningless exhibitions. The players being counted on to provide the actual entertainment don’t make any money, and they’re responding accordingly. If bowl games want to continue in existence and have relevance, they should probably figure out how to make it worthwhile for players.
Won’t make a difference for super high level kids chasing big NIL deals, but $10-20k/kid will get a lot of kids excited to play and allow programs to field a team.