In several short years few will recall the game itself, especially not those on the Trop's Party Deck. But, historians will note that 2014 was the year that a major American college football bowl game was named for a post-national cryptocurrency associated with techno-libertarians and anonymous transactions.

As much as it sounds like the premise of a near future, science fiction novel, it is happening.

And, why not?

The Bitcoin Bowl is a perfect end to 2014, the year that "the future" happened. After all, 2014 was the year in which American retailers started selling 3D printers, the U.S. Navy began mounting lasers on its ships, humans landed robots on Mars and an asteroid, analysts began asking whether home based solar power could kill off American utilities, and state-sponsored hackers raided Hollywood.

It's only appropriate that we'd end the year with the Bitcoin Bowl. And it's quintessentially American to celebrate a new and disruptive technology with a televised sporting event from a massive, air conditioned arena in the subtropics.

While the student sections from NC State and UCF will party at the Trop, cheer for their team and hit the clubs in St. Pete, the real story will be how TV (in this case ESPN) educates Americans on bitcoin. In many ways this is Bitcoin's first TV extravaganza. And the available public opinion data (18 polls and counting from 2013-2014) suggests that most American viewers will be hearing about bitcoin for the 1st time. In May 2013 only 23 percent of Americans had heard of Bitcoin, much lower than in the UK (32 percent) and Argentina (38 percent). By March of this year, according to a Reason-Rupe online survey, only 19 percent of Americans had heard "a lot" or "some" about Bitcoin. But by May this number had increased to 37 percent in another online survey. And in May a survey sponsored by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors found 51 percent of Americans having at least some level of awareness of Bitcoin. All of this means that the Bitcoin Bowl itself will function as a basic awareness raising event