I'd thought I'd post this info. I found that for FY 2002-2003 that the NCAA made $438 million with 85% of it from TV and media rights.

OF that about 24% of the revenue went for NCAA BB credits to conferences ($105.3 million)

HEre is the link. This is why I am not sure if you will see a true playoff because the conferences only received 24%. In FB, conferences receive 100% (or close to it from the BCS revenue)

Basketball:
http://www.ncaa.org/releases/monthlyTeleconferences/2004/200403RevenueDistrNotes.html

Football:
http://www.ncaa.org/financial/postseason_football/2004-05/2004-05_bcs_revenue.html

Good information, Panther. Basketball revenues are approaching $600 million in recent years.

This info says that the basketball tournament is far more lucrative than the football bowls, but that it is basketball that pays the bills while football turns a profit for a few vested interests. Thes erevenues also do not show what expenses are associated with these revenues.

I think you're right about the conferences holding onto the bowl system because they keep all the revenue. However, I think that their view on this is short sighted. A play-off system would boost interest in bowl games & increae revenues. I think that the basketball tournament shows just how much money the football schools are leaving on the table by sticking with an antiquated system. Football revenues would approach basketball revenues if football hasd a play-off system.

Cheers,
FriarFan

Maybe the football people know that a playoff would NOT actually increase overall interest.

I don't "know" that, BTW, I don't know if a study is out there. Just a thought.

Pounder, the best explanation I've heard is that a play-off system would reduce the number of schools that go to a post season game. Under the current system, 2 schools play in a championship bowl & a whole lot of other teams also go to bowl games, be they of varying levels of prestige & financial reward.

I believe that you would need a 64 team tournament to involve approximately the same number of schools that currently go to bowls. This would involve too many games for teams that go to advanced rounds. The alternative of a play-off with fewer rounds (8, 16, or 32) would in all likelihood kill the other bowls & involve fewer teams. I think that the schools like the idea of going to some kind of a bowl & it may well tie into increased alumni donations for them.

All of this doesn't mean that there would not be increased general fan interest for a play-off vs the current bowl system. I think that there are just competing agendas which they haven't been able to resolve. I think that there is a fear that even the idea of the current bowls +1 would diminish the viability of the major bowls that do not get the 4 semi-finalists.

I think that this is too bad because it seems like the best compromise. It only adds one game - & it does so at a time when school is not in session. The current 4 major bowls could rotate the 3 games ( 2 semi-final gaes + championship game) among themselves & still host the 2 conference champs that don't make it in the fourth year when they are rotated out. My guess is that they would make out better financially with this system over a 4-year span.

We have the potential for 4 undefeated teams this year - VA Tech, Alabama, Texas, & either USC or UCLA. It just seems to get worse every year!

FriaFan

Friarfan, agree there could be as many as four undefeated teams at the end of season, and again, more than one undefeated teams after the bowl games.

Imagine, an undefeated Alabama who also could win a SEC championship game being shut out of the national championship game. It happened to Auburn. But to Alabama, and for the SEC two years in a row?

And, one cannot convince me right now that Virginia Tech and Michael Vick could not handle Texas and Vince Young. Neither Texas or USC, would necessarily make those huge comebacks against a team such as Virginia Tech, if they fell behind early as they have with other opponents.

The best team could also be someone that has one loss. Only a sensible playoff can determine the real champion.

Well said! :)

It could also subject the best team to an unfortunate loss in the first round due to injuries, having a bad day, etc. Just as the one loss team in your scenario might have suffered the same thing 9 weeks earlier.

I'm not advocating for or against here, but I do think that the value of a playoff in football isn't the given many of its champions would think. The winner of the basketball tourny isn't always arguably the best team going. How many times have serious contenders suffered an upset? How many contenders have had their road made easier by others being upset? Surely in football the folks at (insert BCS conference here) will scream and howl the moment they lose to a CUSA rep in the first round. "Unfair seeding!"

It's kind of like the MVP debates: Is that award for the best player, who may be surrounded by great talent, or the one who meant the most to his team, even if that team didn't do so well? There've been planty of times where the team that was clearly the best throughout the season wasn't able to finish the deal in a playoff. Thus I feel we'd have almost as much debate about the validity of a national championship no matter how its decided.

Just for consideration...

Gunner, I would offer this perspective.

I never see it being about who is "the best team." Rather, I se it as which team can ACHIEVE the highest goal. Football poll voters will often say that they are basing their vote on who intheir view is the best team. What difference does that make? Pretty theoretical in my mind.

You're right that the team that has played the best during the season can suffer an upset. That's actually the thrill of a single elimination tournament. Less likely to happen in a 5 game series in other sports. and even less likely than that in a 7 game series. However, the beauty of a play-off is that it sets up COMPETITION at the highest level. To me, it's all about competition. Yes, teams can suffer bad breaks, but can they overcome those breaks? On-filed competition is memorable.

If we are going to leave things to polls, why bother to play the season. Just take a vote at the beginning of the season & go home.

The idea of a play-off to me is that we take the teams who have achieved at the highest levels in their respective conferences during the regular season & then give them the opportunity to compete at an even higher level against each other. In the end, it will not "prove" who is the best, but it will be a demonstration of who was able to rise to the occasion in this highly competitive situation. I think that's worth doing & it represents quite an achievement. "For one shining moment . . ." & all that.

Cheers,
FriarFan

Obviously, in any sport nearly, the team deemed the best may not grab the ultimate championship. If there were no surprises, why play the games anyway?
However 1-A college football is the one sport whereby the championship is decided basically by polls. So #1 and #2 from the polls get paired to determine the champion, but that certainly has not been without controversy and when more than 2 are undefeated, or just one is undefeated and there are several one loss teams, and a favorite gets picked by the system, this just enhances suspicion.
If there was a playoff among the top four, and one or more has a regular season loss, that still gets much closer of assuring the best prepared is included. No system is perfect, but a modest playoff may be worth a try.

I completely agree, DNC. The 4+1 would be more inclusive of teams that have earned the right to be there. rather than last year's sham with regard to the treatment of Auburn & Utah. And the potential for an even worse situation esists this year.

"1-A college football is the one sport whereby the championship is decided basically by the polls."

Ah, yes. It is "decided" by the polls. This is why it is often referreded to as the "mythical" national championship. I think that a better way to put it is that 1-A college football is the one sport in which there is NO national championship competition. Every sport has polls, but winning the poll doesn't make you a champion. Championships can only be earned - not awarded. The one endeavor in which votes make you a winner is politics.

Here's a thought, and for the life of me I can't think of why it hasn't hit me before: What's to prevent the NCAA from offering a championship trophy, and thusly establishing how they'll award it? Bear with...

The heads of/powers that be in D1, and more exactly 1-A, have esentially prohibited a playoff by not pursuing one and entrenching the bowl system. To the best of knowledge, however, there is nothing in the laws that prohibits the NCAA from awarding a trophy to a champion, just as with all the other sports sponsored by the organization but as has not been done in 1-A ever(?). While the criteria for awarding the trophy may be at the discretion of the 1-A BOD, I imagine that the NCAA admin itself can mandate that every sport gets a champion.

This could be used to stir the pot a little bit, by heightening the urgency with which the 1-A folks must clarify who gets the now official championship trophy. The BCS gets a pass with holding the Coaches poll hostage because a) there are other polls to supposedly counter balance the coaches poll, and b) it's not an official NCAA authorized award. Having to give out an actual NCAA trophy, however, changes the dynamics of the situation, no?

I'm sure there are deeper politics involved, however for all the talk about "playoffs" and fair "national championships," I've never even heard why there has never been an official 1-A championship trophy and/or an effort to instate one. If I were among those institutions seeking an alternative to the BCS, I'd seek to have a trophy offered to the national champion - regardless of how that champion is identified right now. Having an officially sanctioned trophy awarded would be the first step to rationalizing the need for a playoff.




Then again maybe I'm just completely out of the loop here and someone can point that out! ;D

Not out of the loop, Gunner. As always, eminently reasonable. But then, this isn't about reason; it's about money.

Your scenario actually happened in basketball - twice. The first time was in 1938 when a group of New York schools sponsored the NIT - essentially a championship tournament outside the NCAA. At that time Eastern schools were as powerful in basketball as any group in the country, so this was nothing to be sneezed at. And the NCAA didn't sneeze. They held their breath & started their own tournament the very next year. It was a protracted battle. As late as 1954, the argument could be made that the NIT champion, Holy Cross, was the best team in the country. They were higher ranked than NCAA champion LaSalle & they had beaten a higher ranked team, #3 Duquesne, in the tournament finals to win the championship than LaSalle did in the NCAA tournament vs #7 Bradley.

Although the NCAA champion was pretty clearly the best team after that, NIT champions were opften as good as or better than one or more of the teams in the Final Four due to the strict regionalism of the NCAA tournament. Eventually this provoked the NCAA to sponsor the "Commissioner's Tournament" in 1973 - its second foray into a national championship tournament to beat back the NIT. It was for conference runners-up who were frustrated at being unable to go to post-season play even if a team happened to be #2 in the country but second in its conference while other teams were going to the NIT, making money, & gaining publicity for recruiting purposes. After 3 years of this debacle, it opened the way for conference runners-up to be eligible for the NCAA tournament & for the tournament to become an "open" tournament 10 years later. This entire process took almost 50 years to become in 1986 the tournament we have today.

The major difference between this basketball situation & the current football situation is that it was the conferences of state universities that control the NCAA who led the way to a rival tournament to the NIT, sponsored by the NCAA. Last I looked, the NCAA president was from a Big Ten school, so even though the votes may be up for grabs, the power & influence of the president's office, from which such initiatives usually come, is in the hands of the BCS conferences. And the issue of votes is probably why the number of BCS conferences will always remain at 6 or more regardless of whether the Big East or some other #6 conference is "worthy."

The other factor is that the changes in the basketball tournament were always in favor of getting more schools involved in post-season play. Unless it has 64 teams, any football play-off would involve fewer teams than are currently invoved in the bowl system. And a 64 team play-off means 6 games for teams that make it to the finals -, which is just way too many. A smaller play-off involving a substantial number of teams - even as few as 8 - runs the risk of killing off the rest of the bowls, which no one wants to see. Sixteen would certainly kill off the other bowls.Ultimately, 4+1 would seem to provide a legitimate champion without threatening the health of the other bowls, so you'd think they could get that done.

Cheers,
FriarFan

Friar, that may be the most astute, reasonable and realistic summation of the BCS issue that's been posted on the web. One that might even be solid enough to turn the most ardent "playoffs or bust" supporter into a cheerleader for the 4+1 model. No, sir, cheers to you. ;)

Since you raised those points:
a) You'd think the BCS conferences would encourage the MWC to expand and entrench their majority stance?
b) This also suggests that it will be a long time coming before we see a 1-A with the Colonial or Southern conferences involved!;
c) It speaks to the need for a system wherein the NCAA can navigate changes to their membership. Seemingly D-1 will continue to grow in numbers, outpacing the ability of the larger programs to outdistance the "mid-majors." At what point is D-1 too large that it might need to re-classify itself, if ever? Should(n't) the system be such that schools can't graduate betweeb divisions but conferences can? Stuff to think about here.

That's getting to the core of the problem. Awarding a trophy based more-so on the polls, can be an even greater throw back to the pre-BCS days.

However, the NCAA could sponsor a competition for the trophy & not rely on polls to "award" a championship. Teams would be free to decline invitations to compete in the championship competition, so others would be invited instead & would "earn" the championship. Teams have always been free to decline invitations. For most of its history, Notre Dame refused to participate in post-season bowls & were still voted national championships in the polls while other teams were winning bowl games.

I like Gunner's idea. Let the NCAA sponsor a championship competition of some sort. Let those who are interested compete for the "official" NCAA championship. Eventually everyone will come around even though there would be parallel competitions for a while - just as there were in basletball for the first 15 years when the NIT was at least on par with the NCAA tournament.

FriarFan