Skjellyfetti
December 31st, 2007, 06:23 PM
Send the man some positive feedback
Wendell Barnhouse, 817-390-7760
[email protected]
A crowning shame
By WENDELL BARNHOUSE
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Attention, college football fans: You have been and are being duped. Fooled. Bamboozled. Deceived.
Unfortunately, you are a willing participant in the scam.
Another college football postseason, with its 32 -- 32! -- bowls is underway. For the 10th year, the Bowl Championship Series is selling its title game as a championship game.
Unlike some of the previous seasons, though, there are a handful of teams -- not just one or two -- that can yell about being denied a chance at playing for the title.
The BCS system is the current evolved state of major college postseason football. We're years from the evolution allowing the sport to walk upright (a playoff).
Where's the fraud, you ask? Most of the arguments against a playoff are nonsensical or simply wrong. Here is a primer about college football and why the playoff movement remains blockaded:
Where's the NCAA?
College sports' governing body has no control over college football. It has been that way since 1984 when the Supreme Court ruled the NCAA's jurisdiction over regular-season telecasts was an anti-trust violation.
The only control the NCAA has over postseason football is certifying bowl games. And considering that just a decade ago there were only 20 bowls, that's not working out so well.
If the NCAA somehow got Division I-A on the playoff path, the money generated would be equally divided among (at least) the I-A membership.
The six BCS conferences and their control of the majority of bowl money is a major reason those conferences are against a playoff.
Though a playoff would almost certainly produce more money than the current bowl system, playoff money would have to be split with all 120 Division I-A schools. The big schools would balk at getting the same-sized slice as the smaller I-A schools.
It's academic
The argument against a playoff is that players' grades would suffer.
The majority of the BCS schools surveyed by the Star-Telegram had first-semester finals finished by Dec. 14. The second semester starts for most on Jan. 14.
That's at least a three-week window of semester break. Three weeks would allow for a three-round playoff (eight teams).
Division I-AA, Division II and Division III each staged their 16-team playoffs with championship games held the weekend of Dec. 14-15.
In I-AA, Appalachian State and Delaware played Dec. 14. Appalachian State's last day of finals was Dec. 12; Delaware's finals were Dec. 14. The school adjusted the test schedules to accommodate players who had conflicts.
Based on the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate statistics, Appalachian State and Delaware are both above average when it comes to graduating their football players.
College presidents are adamant about keeping football as a "one semester" sport.
When the change was made to the current "double-hosting" format, the BCS title game was moved to the second week of January. Eighteen BCS schools start their second semester on or before Jan. 7, the date of this year's title game.
Ruining the regular season
This season served as more compelling evidence college football has the most meaningful regular season in sports. The argument against a multi-team playoff is that it would dilute the excitement and meaning of the regular season.
If champions of the six major conferences gained automatic bids to a playoff bracket, how would that make the regular season worthless?
The champions of the six conferences earn automatic bids to BCS bowls, but only two play for the national championship. Why should the other four league champs play a meaningful regular season that results in a meaningless bowl game?
The regular season unfolds like the chapters in a book. Nobody knows what will happen with each week's games. Adding another chapter (playoffs) wouldn't diminish the story lines.
Bowl tradition
Opponents say a playoff would kill (at worst) or diminish (at best) one of the sports' great traditions.
Bowl games were started to lure teams and fans to Sun Belt cities eager to showcase their tourist attractions. They were never intended to have an impact on the national championship.
Where's the New Year's Day tradition? Just six of this year's games are played on Jan. 1.
Where's the tradition in the Pioneer Las Vegas, the Papajohns.com, the R+L Carriers New Orleans and the Roady's Humanitarian bowls? Tradition in this case translates to corporate sponsorship and product placement.
Would the bowls die?
Some would. Some should. A number of bowls have been propped up by the major conferences so bowl-eligible teams from those leagues will have postseason opportunities.
The bowls with the best conference tie-ins, corporate sponsorship and community support would continue. ESPN thirsts for programming and bowls that can survive would exist as programming filler.
This season, for instance, the Rose Bowl still will be played in its coveted afternoon time slot -- the meat in the middle of a playoff semifinals sandwich.
Under the Star-Telegram playoff proposal for this season, the Rose could match 10-2 Arizona State against 9-3 Illinois and keep its conference affiliation intact.
A money maker?
Bowl games produce about $210 million in team payouts each year. More than 80 percent of that money goes to the six major conferences.
How much money would a playoff make? FOX was willing to pay $60 million per year in its current deal. FOX televises four games, so that's $15 million per game.
Based on all the clamoring for a playoff, an eight-team or 10-team playoff would be a popular and desirous product.
If each game of a 10-team playoff is worth $15 million, the current rate, that's still a double-your-money proposition. Let's say the games' average worth is $17.5 million; that's still $157.5 million for a 10-team, nine-game playoff.
Those are conservative estimates. Television and advertising executives who have run the numbers believe a 16-team I-A playoff could produce $550 million... a year.
The Plus One "Solution"
The BCS is in Year Two of its "double-hosting" format. The new system expanded the number of BCS bowls from four to five. When the system was approved, some thought it was the precursor to a "Plus One" format.
While not a multi-team playoff, a Plus One would be a national championship game whose teams are decided after the BCS games are played. The current BCS calendar, with the title game scheduled for the second week in January, would accommodate this format.
One idea would send teams to their "anchor" bowls -- Big 12 champ to the Fiesta, for instance -- and then the top two teams would be selected after games played on New Year's Day or the day after.
Another idea would seed the top four teams with the winners meeting in the title game.
Opponents say seeding the teams is no different than a mini-playoff. Also, it would not solve the problems if more than four teams are deemed worthy of competing for the national title.
Hostage situation
College football's postseason is being held captive by the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences and the Rose Bowl. Maintaining that traditional relationship -- while all other bowl games have moved on to the 21st century -- is preventing any serious dialogue about a meaningful postseason.
The Rose Bowl and the 21 schools in the two conferences represent a minority that hold sway over the majority. College football is a collection of fiefdoms (conferences). The Big Ten and the Pac-10 believe they're the British Empire.
Several athletic administrators gripe that college football is being held hostage by the Tournament of Roses Parade.
What needs to happen
Regular-season attendance in I-A will be a record 46,459 fans per game. The attendance average has increased each of the last 11 seasons.
ABC/ESPN and CBS, the major networks of regular-season games, had their best Nielsen ratings since 1999.
College football fans who dislike the current method of crowning a champion want a playoff while still eating their regular-season cake.
Until they start voting with their pocketbooks -- staying home, not buying tickets -- and remote controls -- not watching their favorite teams -- the commissioners who run the major conferences have no reason to make a change.
They're too busy counting their money.
http://www.star-telegram.com/college_sports/story/383838.html
Wendell Barnhouse, 817-390-7760
[email protected]
A crowning shame
By WENDELL BARNHOUSE
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Attention, college football fans: You have been and are being duped. Fooled. Bamboozled. Deceived.
Unfortunately, you are a willing participant in the scam.
Another college football postseason, with its 32 -- 32! -- bowls is underway. For the 10th year, the Bowl Championship Series is selling its title game as a championship game.
Unlike some of the previous seasons, though, there are a handful of teams -- not just one or two -- that can yell about being denied a chance at playing for the title.
The BCS system is the current evolved state of major college postseason football. We're years from the evolution allowing the sport to walk upright (a playoff).
Where's the fraud, you ask? Most of the arguments against a playoff are nonsensical or simply wrong. Here is a primer about college football and why the playoff movement remains blockaded:
Where's the NCAA?
College sports' governing body has no control over college football. It has been that way since 1984 when the Supreme Court ruled the NCAA's jurisdiction over regular-season telecasts was an anti-trust violation.
The only control the NCAA has over postseason football is certifying bowl games. And considering that just a decade ago there were only 20 bowls, that's not working out so well.
If the NCAA somehow got Division I-A on the playoff path, the money generated would be equally divided among (at least) the I-A membership.
The six BCS conferences and their control of the majority of bowl money is a major reason those conferences are against a playoff.
Though a playoff would almost certainly produce more money than the current bowl system, playoff money would have to be split with all 120 Division I-A schools. The big schools would balk at getting the same-sized slice as the smaller I-A schools.
It's academic
The argument against a playoff is that players' grades would suffer.
The majority of the BCS schools surveyed by the Star-Telegram had first-semester finals finished by Dec. 14. The second semester starts for most on Jan. 14.
That's at least a three-week window of semester break. Three weeks would allow for a three-round playoff (eight teams).
Division I-AA, Division II and Division III each staged their 16-team playoffs with championship games held the weekend of Dec. 14-15.
In I-AA, Appalachian State and Delaware played Dec. 14. Appalachian State's last day of finals was Dec. 12; Delaware's finals were Dec. 14. The school adjusted the test schedules to accommodate players who had conflicts.
Based on the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate statistics, Appalachian State and Delaware are both above average when it comes to graduating their football players.
College presidents are adamant about keeping football as a "one semester" sport.
When the change was made to the current "double-hosting" format, the BCS title game was moved to the second week of January. Eighteen BCS schools start their second semester on or before Jan. 7, the date of this year's title game.
Ruining the regular season
This season served as more compelling evidence college football has the most meaningful regular season in sports. The argument against a multi-team playoff is that it would dilute the excitement and meaning of the regular season.
If champions of the six major conferences gained automatic bids to a playoff bracket, how would that make the regular season worthless?
The champions of the six conferences earn automatic bids to BCS bowls, but only two play for the national championship. Why should the other four league champs play a meaningful regular season that results in a meaningless bowl game?
The regular season unfolds like the chapters in a book. Nobody knows what will happen with each week's games. Adding another chapter (playoffs) wouldn't diminish the story lines.
Bowl tradition
Opponents say a playoff would kill (at worst) or diminish (at best) one of the sports' great traditions.
Bowl games were started to lure teams and fans to Sun Belt cities eager to showcase their tourist attractions. They were never intended to have an impact on the national championship.
Where's the New Year's Day tradition? Just six of this year's games are played on Jan. 1.
Where's the tradition in the Pioneer Las Vegas, the Papajohns.com, the R+L Carriers New Orleans and the Roady's Humanitarian bowls? Tradition in this case translates to corporate sponsorship and product placement.
Would the bowls die?
Some would. Some should. A number of bowls have been propped up by the major conferences so bowl-eligible teams from those leagues will have postseason opportunities.
The bowls with the best conference tie-ins, corporate sponsorship and community support would continue. ESPN thirsts for programming and bowls that can survive would exist as programming filler.
This season, for instance, the Rose Bowl still will be played in its coveted afternoon time slot -- the meat in the middle of a playoff semifinals sandwich.
Under the Star-Telegram playoff proposal for this season, the Rose could match 10-2 Arizona State against 9-3 Illinois and keep its conference affiliation intact.
A money maker?
Bowl games produce about $210 million in team payouts each year. More than 80 percent of that money goes to the six major conferences.
How much money would a playoff make? FOX was willing to pay $60 million per year in its current deal. FOX televises four games, so that's $15 million per game.
Based on all the clamoring for a playoff, an eight-team or 10-team playoff would be a popular and desirous product.
If each game of a 10-team playoff is worth $15 million, the current rate, that's still a double-your-money proposition. Let's say the games' average worth is $17.5 million; that's still $157.5 million for a 10-team, nine-game playoff.
Those are conservative estimates. Television and advertising executives who have run the numbers believe a 16-team I-A playoff could produce $550 million... a year.
The Plus One "Solution"
The BCS is in Year Two of its "double-hosting" format. The new system expanded the number of BCS bowls from four to five. When the system was approved, some thought it was the precursor to a "Plus One" format.
While not a multi-team playoff, a Plus One would be a national championship game whose teams are decided after the BCS games are played. The current BCS calendar, with the title game scheduled for the second week in January, would accommodate this format.
One idea would send teams to their "anchor" bowls -- Big 12 champ to the Fiesta, for instance -- and then the top two teams would be selected after games played on New Year's Day or the day after.
Another idea would seed the top four teams with the winners meeting in the title game.
Opponents say seeding the teams is no different than a mini-playoff. Also, it would not solve the problems if more than four teams are deemed worthy of competing for the national title.
Hostage situation
College football's postseason is being held captive by the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences and the Rose Bowl. Maintaining that traditional relationship -- while all other bowl games have moved on to the 21st century -- is preventing any serious dialogue about a meaningful postseason.
The Rose Bowl and the 21 schools in the two conferences represent a minority that hold sway over the majority. College football is a collection of fiefdoms (conferences). The Big Ten and the Pac-10 believe they're the British Empire.
Several athletic administrators gripe that college football is being held hostage by the Tournament of Roses Parade.
What needs to happen
Regular-season attendance in I-A will be a record 46,459 fans per game. The attendance average has increased each of the last 11 seasons.
ABC/ESPN and CBS, the major networks of regular-season games, had their best Nielsen ratings since 1999.
College football fans who dislike the current method of crowning a champion want a playoff while still eating their regular-season cake.
Until they start voting with their pocketbooks -- staying home, not buying tickets -- and remote controls -- not watching their favorite teams -- the commissioners who run the major conferences have no reason to make a change.
They're too busy counting their money.
http://www.star-telegram.com/college_sports/story/383838.html