College Playoff

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by MililaniBuckeye

Sponsors of the lower- and mid-tier bowl games would much rather have a first-round or quarter-final round playoff game featuring nationally-ranked powers than one between some 7-4 and 6-5 teams.

And that my friends is exactly why play-offs are more likely than not to occur. Added cash AND cache to some of the currently lower-tier bowls.

Which is then followed by a boosting of the value of the upper-tier bowls.

Money.

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by sandgk

And that my friends is exactly why play-offs are more likely than not to occur. Added cash AND cache to some of the currently lower-tier bowls.

Which is then followed by a boosting of the value of the upper-tier bowls.

Money.

You're kidding, right? Tell me that you aren't serious when you imply that the amount of money going to a first-round game has any effect whatsoever on the amount that goes to the title game. That would be like saying that sponsors won't sponsor any games during the regular season except for the last games so they can boost the value of game like Ohio State/Michigan, USC/UCLA, etc. Now how stupid is that?

[Oh8ch]

To keep this discussion on track I think we need to make a distinction between a four team playoff and anything larger. After all, we already have a playoff - it just involves two teams.

I agree with Mili that we will go to a playoff system - probably in 5 years or less. And I think it will be four teams.

A four team playoff does minimal disruption to the existing bowls (use two each year for semis and play the championship game the following week as we are doing this year). Four teams does little to reduce the meaningfulness of the regular season and does not create travel problems or introduce the need to play on 'home fields'.

It is when you go beyond four teams that all these other issues become significant.

I also believe the current BCS ranking system (or a tweaked version) should be used to determine the four teams - regardless of conference ranking. (I still hate rematches, but they wont be all that often under this approach.)

Yes, you will still have disputes as the #5 team makes its case that they are better than the #4 team. But I challenge anyone to name a year where the 5th ranked team at the end of the regular season had any legitimate argument that they were #1.

If you can play a 12 game season and at the end of it can't grab four teams with reasonable certainty that one of those four is the best then your quest to identify the "best" under any other process is really quite hopeless. The larger your field the LESS likely the best team emerges at the end. Second grade math tells you that.

[sandgk]

If the market value of the early round games increases the pay-out from those bowls to the entrant teams, I would argue it entirely conceivable that the later rounds, and title game (most likely tied to the traditional bowls) would also see a hike in their value. The pay-out for those games today is much larger than the comparable pay-outs when the respective bowls were not tied to the BCS, in any dollars, real or constant. I do not see their value diminishing in a play-off system. Hype for a Semi-Final Game would be higher than for a Quarter-Final, Hype for the Final, huge. That generates or sustains interest level, which boosts their value to sponsors.

As for the parallel you offer of the degree of sponsorpship of regular season games, who is now sponsoring OSU/Michigan? Answer nobody, besides which it is not a bowl game. In fact, the Red River Shootout is the only example I can think of immediately that has a sponsorship contract tied to the same.

[BucyrusBuckeye]

Originally Posted by sandgk

And that my friends is exactly why play-offs are more likely than not to occur. Added cash AND cache to some of the currently lower-tier bowls.

Which is then followed by a boosting of the value of the upper-tier bowls.

Money.

Money. The haves don't want to share with the have nots. MONEY
Playoffs would be a fiasco of whining ,moaning and complaining about being left out, that what is happening today about the BCS would seem like nothing.
A ten team playoff , every one loss and/or two loss team that didn't get in would make Meyer seem like a mute. Same goes for 12 , 16 or whatever deep playoff.
The deeper you go into the ncaa roster the more complaintants.
And THAT is why there will never be a playoff. Because it wouldn't solve problems, Just create new ones.

[sandgk]

You could have made the exact same argument (it'll create new problems) before the BCS was created. In fact such arguments were made - yet here we are with the BCS.

New problems don't stop a change, especially if the proposed change is sold as a means to eliminate a "glaring deficiency" in the current system. (Which I would argue a play-off system does not do, whether it is 16 teams, 32 teams, 8 or only 4. Because you are arriving at your pool of candidates through polling - no change. Because if its 4 what about #5, 8 what about #9, etc. And, because it tips on its head the qualification to a few by virtue of season-long accomplishment in the current system, opening the door to the team playing the best football in the month or so of the play-offs themselves.)

What will be interesting is to see how long before the end of the current BCS agreement will it be before the College Presidents consider such a proposal.