Pressure mounting for 8 team playoff
- Thread starter Hedgerunner
- Start date
I've always thought eight teams to be the perfect number. You get five automatic qualifiers from the P5 conferences and three at large teams. You could make a case for one of the three coming from the next tier of conferences.
Happy to see the pressure mounting.
I totally disagree with Gary Patterson's suggestion of eliminating conference championship games. And I believe the SEC will block any attempts to do so.
5 or 6 automatic bids + 2 or 3 at-large bids with specific criteria for qualification (must have at least one out of conference road game, no 1-AA teams on schedule, tied for division title or lost road game to division champ, etc.)
I would prefer 6 auto bids: PAC, SEC, Big Xii, B1G, ACC, and a MWC vs. AAC Thunder Dome match to decide the 6th bid.
I totally disagree with Gary Patterson's suggestion of eliminating conference championship games. And I believe the SEC will block any attempts to do so.
5 or 6 automatic bids + 2 or 3 at-large bids with specific criteria for qualification (must have at least one out of conference road game, no 1-AA teams on schedule, tied for division title or lost road game to division champ, etc.)
I would prefer 6 auto bids: PAC, SEC, Big Xii, B1G, ACC, and a MWC vs. AAC Thunder Dome match to decide the 6th bid.
Let me clarify.
IMO, the highest rated champion between the AAC and MWC should get an "auto" bid. Pitting their two champions against each other would make a 9-team playoff (which I wouldn't oppose, BTW). OR what I'd really like to see is for each of those two leagues to drop the dead weight and become 1 cross-continental 16-team league (with BYU included). But I don't see that happening.
IMO, the highest rated champion between the AAC and MWC should get an "auto" bid. Pitting their two champions against each other would make a 9-team playoff (which I wouldn't oppose, BTW). OR what I'd really like to see is for each of those two leagues to drop the dead weight and become 1 cross-continental 16-team league (with BYU included). But I don't see that happening.
I think that is a great idea for football purposes, but could be difficult for the other sports. To me the idea of doing away with a confernce championship game is beyond silly. I think eventually it will go to at least 8 teams, and wouldn't be suprised to see 12-16 teams. To do that however, you would probably only play conference games in the regular season.
There's WAY too much money for conferences to make to NOT have a championship game. TV alone makes that worth it. Plus, it's like an extra playoff game.
8 teams is better than 4, but I'm not sure about auto-bids. I think that would naturally happen, but in wacky years where parity reigns supreme and a pick-your-power-5-conference where a league champ has 4 losses, shouldn't be automatically put in the playoff. But whatever .... it's not that big a deal for me frankly.
I think going away from division within the P5 conferences can eliminate a P5 teams having 4 or more loses getting an automatic bid.
Yet there's no indication that there will be ay movement away from divisions with the power 5 conferences that have divisions.
But in all honesty, there's no need for automatic bids. The top teams from the power 5 conferences will make the field in most every year.
Glad to hear that an 8 team playoff is being pushed. I choose not to forget the "other guys" locked out of the major conferences. If they are indeed Division I teams then they deserve a shot at it too!
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So will a 12, 16, 20, .........team playoff. Just like the NCAA tourney. No matter the size, there will arguments for "so-and-so deserves a shot...". (I realize the season length restricts too many PO games, but you get the drift)
Then, as in the NCAA, there will be upsets, and the argument grows.
Ain't nothing dead solid perfect.
I can see eight. But if it goes to eight, it needs to stay at eight IMO.
I don't think they will talk about going away from divisions until a 12-0 Alabama loses to a 8-4 Florida team in the SEC title, and the SEC misses out on the playoffs.
That's not going to be an issue. The reason tournaments keep expanding has nothing to do with complaints by the fans. The reason the tournaments expand is money. With a 4 team playoff, that means you realistically have 6-7 teams fighting for those 4 spots. That means you have roughly 6-7 games every week with playoff implications.
If you go to 8 teams, you have about 12-14 teams fighting for those spots. Now you about double the amount of games with playoff implications every week. That means a lot more ratings and advertising revenue for ESPN, Fox, CBS every week. That's the reason you will see more teams.
Which is also why conferences won't get rid of the divisions. With divisions, more teams have a chance to win the conference title, and therefore you have a larger inventory of significant games.
Of course. Follow the $$$.
But....under your scenario a 10 or 12 team PO would make even more games "important". But the season length prohibits that IMO.
If the season were longer, no telling how many teams they would try to cram in. And if the $$ is there, the season may get longer.
It's not about athletics anymore. Athletics is just the catalyst.
Rollem is completely correct that it is going way beyond "athletics". It is totally about professionalizing college sports and paying coaches of as few as a dozen 18-21 year-olds $9m or more per year. It is all about the hungry "mouse" getting obscene amounts of money and about younger Americans' thirst for more meaningless (but seemingly-to-them meaningful) sports content.
It is really quite simple: As long as principally youngish Americans have sufficient discretionary spending available and also sufficient interest and available time to watch 'sports' on TV or on-demand internet, there will be more and more and more content and longer and longer seasons and more and more playoff participants and more and more bowl exhibitions and bigger and bigger NCAA tournaments. It no longer even matters that games sometimes are at 20-40% of stadium capacity. It is about getting them on TV/Internet and paying them (conferences/teams/coaches/players) the Benjamins.
I would not be surprised to see, at some point, a 20-24 team CFB playoff plus 45 "bowls". And allowing 5-game winners in, without exceptions. And also a 96-128 team NCAA tournament.
We will succeed in having destroyed the regular seasons, and we won't even care!
And in making the seasons so much longer, while trying to prevent and limit injuries, we will play a modified version of touch football and an even weaker version of AAU one-on-one, slam and jam basketball. Defense will not be allowed in any sport except the most benign 'toreador' type. And 'student'-athletes won't have time to go to any classes any more, but, despite that, will be guaranteed an undergrad degree in something or other.
Athletes will be not as good anymore, but they will be paid quite handsomely. Their bodies will be even more chiseled, because they will have near limitless time to work out and exercise.
And we will sit on our couches at home and in bars, watching, drinking beer and eating pretzels, belching the whole time, and feeling great about the world that we have created.
No, my analysis is correct. The more teams you have in the playoffs, the more significant games you have in the regular season, which brings higher ratings/revenue. That's the exact reason why professional leagues keep expanding their playoffs. It's why baseball went to the wild card, and then added another wild card. It's why the NFL added a third wild-card, and is considering adding another.
The season length also doesn't prohibit 10 or 12 teams. In FCS, the schools play a 12-game regular season, and a 5 round playoff. That's 17 games. In FBS, if you went to 12 (or even 16), that's 4 games. Even if you count the CCG, that comes out to a total of 17 games, exact same as the FCS. There is absolutely no reason it's too long for FBS if it's ok for FCS.
8-16 is about right. BTW, if it's all about the Benjis, then why has the FCS playoff expanded so much? There's not big money is those games. It's about determining a real champion, the way every other sport at every level in college sports does it - with a playoff. What they have now is a joke, because the participants are chosen with opinions. With conference champs, you earn your way in by winning something. Anybody who whines about not getting in - tell them to go win your conference
Because it does make a lot of money, relative to them. If you compare the FCS playoffs to the FBS, then yeah, it's chump change. However, if you compare the FCS playoffs to what the FCS teams normally make, it's actually a good amount of money to them. The FCS playoffs are where FCS teams get most of their TV money. They get very little from regular season games, because only a handful of them actually get televised.
I think the expenses associated with travel, operating their stadiums, etc., cut pretty deeply into that. If they are in a conference (almost all are) the revenue gets shared with conference mates to some extent, so I don't know that even relatively speaking it is all that lucrative. I think there is a real desire to determine a champion on the field of play, just like in golf, tennis, track, swimming, wrestling, and any other NCAA-sanctioned sport. That was my point.
The field should expand and continue to expand until there is no legit argument that a team left out could have won the championship. Like TCU last year.
At the other extreme, the NCAA field of 64 is too large. While teams and talking heads argue that bubble teams should be in or out, no one argues that one of those teams could win the championship. Anyone know if an NCAA bubble team has ever won the NCAA tourney?
I'll leave the challenge of how to get all those games played to the "experts"...
At the other extreme, the NCAA field of 64 is too large. While teams and talking heads argue that bubble teams should be in or out, no one argues that one of those teams could win the championship. Anyone know if an NCAA bubble team has ever won the NCAA tourney?
I'll leave the challenge of how to get all those games played to the "experts"...
Nope, it doesn't. You have to understand how FCS schools operate. They will play a game against Ohio St, Florida, Texas, etc. for $800/900k, and that one game pays for a big chunk of their athletic budget for the year.
Therefore, even if you only get ~$500k (or less) from the playoffs, to an FCS school, that's a huge deal. For FBS teams, it's a drop in the bucket, but critical for FCS schools.
I understand your point. You don't understand mine. Just the idea of having a playoff itself, yes is about a desire to have a champion. Nobody disputes that point. In FCS, you could have a playoff with just 10-12 teams and achieve that goal. There really isn't a reason to have 24 teams, from a competitive standpoint. The reason is money.
Eight is Enough. Four is too few.
All champions of power 5, however they decide to determine it, plus best of the rest of FBS conference champs
(excluding no one) and finally two at large from anywhere.
Can you imagine the uproar if & when an SEC is left out. Eventually all of the conferences will get left out at 4. 8 cures that ill as well as makes it more inclusive for the non- power conferences.
All champions of power 5, however they decide to determine it, plus best of the rest of FBS conference champs
(excluding no one) and finally two at large from anywhere.
Can you imagine the uproar if & when an SEC is left out. Eventually all of the conferences will get left out at 4. 8 cures that ill as well as makes it more inclusive for the non- power conferences.
You really should have to earn a playoff birth by winning your conference. Right now, it's just based on opinions, which is what it's always been based on. I like what the OP says.
Agree with Pervis! Schools need the money returns from games, television rights, and concessions!
