Alright so the latest buzz around college football is conference expansion. Will the Big Ten move to 14 or 16 teams? Will the PAC Ten follow suit? You’ve heard it all before. But what I want to know is how would any conference alignment changes impact a potential playoff.
This *could* be a step in the right direction for a playoff to occur organically. By organically, I mean without lawmaker interference. I think pretty much everyone would prefer that playoffs evolve this way, as opposed to the government getting involved. Right?
So let’s look at one scenario that could work out well for us playoff junkies: Four 16 team super conferences. Suppose it just happens and suspend disbelief for a moment. This could be a great segway to a playoff, and here’s why.
First of all, Conference Championship games could be a natural 1st round of playoffs, with 4 Regional Champions that emerge. Well, with 4 teams you have a quick and easy group for a Semi-finals and Championship game to follow. Each entrant would have earned their spot on the field. Opinion polls wouldn’t factor in at all. Good teams that did not emerge as a Conference Champ would be available for bowl games.
The only problem is equal access for all Division 1 Bowl Subdivision teams. I don’t like the idea of exclusionary playoffs any more than the exclusionary BCS. The media wouldn’t like this solution, but screw them – they don’t care about the actual sport, they care about their next pay check. If 16 team conferences become the norm, why restrict it to just 4 conference champions being entered in the new national playoff? I think any conference made up of 16 D1 FBS teams should have the champion of the conference championship game be included automatically.
Today, there could be a maximum of seven 16-team super conferences. Yes, there’s a remainder, but let’s just suppose for simplicity’s sake that there are a couple of 18 team conferences. A seven team playoff in college football would NOT be too much for people to handle, I don’t imagine.
There are some interesting quotes in this article about last year’s BCS distributions. College football really is about the student athlete, not the money, to all the top dogs in the BCS… and if you believe that, I have some high quality air to sell you for every penny you’ve got.
It’s really a question of value, says WAC Commissioner Karl Benson. When a Utah shocks an Alabama or a Boise State stuns an Oklahoma, doesn’t that demonstrate the value of those teams and conferences to the BCS? Shouldn’t the payout to the conferences like the WAC and the Mountain West that send teams to the BCS look like the payout to the big six conferences?
No, responds Harvey Perlman, chancellor at the University of Nebraska and chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee. He says there’s a difference between playing well in a game and demonstrating the kind of value that drives long-term media contracts.
“Those teams have certainly performed well, but you’re talking about adding value,” Perlman said. “The real question is whether including those conferences when you negotiate a TV contract adds to the willingness of the network to increase the bid. I don’t think we’ve seen evidence that that’s true.”
Playoffs may or may not happen magically overnight, when we least expect it. In the meantime, we’re looking at ways to move the ball along through regular channels.
As such, WeDemandPlayoffs.com is pursuing the possibility of starting a bowl game that is played at the home stadium of one of the two participating teams. Here are the advantages we see:
More fans can attend the bowl game
More tickets sold, concessions, etc means more revenue
Less travel expense for one of the teams
Overall higher profitability for participating conferences and institutions than lower-tier bowls where both teams travel to poorly attended games
Granted, teams that travel extremely well to any bowl game to which they are invited wouldn’t necessarily find the above to be strong advantages. However, there aren’t too many teams that completely sell out all their bowl games, so we think this model could work.
You may be wondering why we are considering trying to start a bowl game, if we are pro-playoffs and hate the bowl system. The answer to that question is that we believe this could be a stepping stone to show University Presidents how profitable home games in the post-season could be for them. And if the model is more profitable, perhaps they will be more motivated to look “outside the box” for college football, as opposed to being dogmatic about “tradition”.
So says Bill Hancock, executive director of the Bowl Championship Series. You gotta read this article – Hancock has some incredible quotes that speak volumes to how little the BCS cares what the fans want. Hancock should simply wear a tshirt around with “F you, football fans” on it. His message would be the same.
Well guess what, Bill? We aren’t buying the crap you’re selling anymore. We want playoffs and we’re going to get them. Your big salaries and the big salaries of your bowl buddies are in jeopardy, but we’re going to win.
“The BCS is fair,” Hancock said. “People call it criminal, a cartel and unfair, and the fact is, it’s not. It’s fair.”
If it’s so fair and wonderful, why are you spending money on big-time lobbyists in Washington DC, Bill? You shouldn’t have anything to worry about if the BCS is so great.
The Boise State Broncos are the 2009-2010 college football bowl subdivision national champions. Congratulations Bronco nation!
We’ll give #2 to Alabama, who played a decent game last night in the BCS championship game, but just didn’t prove they could beat Boise State. To you, Alabama, we say congratulations on a great season.
To Boise State, we say congratulations on your national championship!!!
Enough of college football preventing its fans from getting what we want! Texas, Alabama, whoever wins – we pre-emptively issue you a challenge: Put a real championship on the line in 2 weeks by facing Boise State in an unsanctioned game. Are you afraid?
Our friends @PlayoffsNow issued the original challenge, and we are joining them in calling for an impromptu game between BSU and the Texas/Alabama winner.
Here’s the basic formula for bowl games to guarantee themselves money from tax-payer funded public institutions (and some private institutions):
Require minimum ticket purchase by each school
Offer guaranteed pay-out to each school, using guaranteed ticket sales as majority of pay-out
Any losses resulting from school’s ticket sales below required allotment are transferred to schools, NOT BOWLS!
So schools lose money on everything from low-tier to BCS bowl games, while Bowl committee members and employees enjoy healthy annual paychecks and major perks. And it’s all funded by guaranteed ticket sales purchased by tax-payer funded public universities either directly or indirectly (contribution via conference affiliation).
This is why Congress should be involved in breaking up the BCS Cartel – YOU AND I ARE THE ONE BEING RIPPED OFF IN THE END!
• Ohio State was required to buy 17,500 tickets to the Fiesta Bowl last Jan. 5 but only sold 9,983, leading to a loss of $1 million for the Buckeyes and the Big Ten Conference.
• Minnesota and the Big Ten bought the required 10,500 tickets for the Insight Bowl last year in Arizona. They only sold 1,512, absorbing a loss of $434,340.
• Ball State and the Mid-American Conference bought 8,889 tickets to the GMAC Bowl in Alabama last Jan. 6 but sold only 1,431, absorbing $400,005.
• Oklahoma State and the Big 12 bought 11,000 to the Holiday Bowl last year but couldn’t sell 5,438, absorbing $318,490.
• Utah was required to buy 10,000 to the Poinsettia Bowl in 2007 (tickets at right) but sold only 2,361 and absorbed $267,365.
Congratulations on making our foes list, Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Examiner! Your pro-bowl system views have earned you a spot of infamy with the college football playoff movement and history will mark you as one of the idiots who tried to impede progress. That’s quite a legacy to be proud of. Ahem.
Friends of playoffs, why not email your thoughts on Dickey’s column to the author? Here’s his address: glenndickey@hotmail.com
[I]f nobody speaks up or forces the college football dictators to confront the blatant discrimination they sign off on every fall, how can a broken system get fixed?
We’ll just continue the present haves-vs.-have-nots existence and act like it’s perfectly fine to rig the process in favor of six BCS conferences and Notre Dame, while leaving 51 other schools from five non-BCS leagues to fight for the crumbs. — Gene Frenette, Jacksonville.com
Well guess what, Bill? We aren’t buying the crap you’re selling anymore. We want playoffs and we’re going to get them. Your big salaries and the big salaries of your bowl buddies are in jeopardy, but we’re going to win.