Football Bowl Subdivision nearing a playoff?
Not a bad article, despite the Wrong Waters quote:
http://www.nola.com/lsu/index.ssf/20.sion_near.html
Football Bowl Subdivision nearing a playoff?
Published: Saturday, January 07, 2012, 8:02 AM
By Nakia Hogan, The Times-Picayune The Times-Picayune
When the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletic director sit down in New Orleans on Tuesday to discuss issues with college football, there will be a giant elephant in the room: the postseason. Thirteen years after the BCS was formed to help create a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup to play for the national title, there's a growing consensus among college football's power brokers that it might be time to revisit the format, which is scheduled to expire in 2014.
Jeff Roberson/The Associated Press archiveSEC Commissioner Mike Slive doesn't support a full playoff system. His model would seed four teams in a semifinal, keeping the bowl system intact, to determine the national championship teams.
Chief among the topics of conversation will be whether college football's highest division is ready to adopt some type of playoff for the first time.
"We are going to have a serious discussion about it," said Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters, who has announced he will retire this summer. "I will tell you this, there are 12 of us in the room, and I don't think any of us are opposed to a playoff.
"The problem is given the factors that we have to deal with, I'm not sure we've found the model that works, and we've looked at a heck of a lot of models. But I think we are going to put them all up on the board again and revisit all of it and make sure that we have it right. At the end of the day we are trying to put No. 1 and No. 2 together."
Meanwhile, proponents of a college football playoff are popping up more often.
Last month, The Moffett Group -- a lobbying firm headed by former Rep. Toby Moffett, D-Conn. -- and the communications firm New Partners launched a national campaign aimed at taking down the BCS.
Also, two congressmen are forming the Congressional Collegiate Sports Caucus. Texas Republican Joe Barton and Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen are reintroducing Barton's 2009 bill aimed at forcing college football's top division to switch to a playoff system.
And at the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum last month, a panel of athletic directors voiced opposition for a large playoff but agreed changes needed to be made, possibly by creating a four-team playoff.
Some athletic directors said a playoff would be the best way to put college football programs on a level playing field.
Under the BCS system, more than $142 million from the BCS' five bowl games (Sugar, Rose, Fiesta, Orange and the BCS championship) is paid to universities via their conferences. But 81 percent of it -- $115.2 million -- is earmarked for the big six conferences, leaving Conference USA, Sun Belt, Mountain West, WAC and the Mid-American to split the majority of the rest -- $24 million. Notre Dame, as an independent member of the BCS, takes $1.3 million.
"The quickest fix is probably the one that everybody has lobbied and campaigned for a number of years that they just won't let happen, which is a playoff, and managing it just like we do every other sport under the NCAA umbrella," Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson said. "We should have a selection process, and if you are deserving you are put into the field -- and you get to compete in the postseason, not these artificial formulas where you are not a BCS conference member, so you don't get a chance. And we have all learned that that is BS."
Money maker
Early estimates of a college football playoff have the games generating much more than the current BCS system.
Eliot Kamenitz/The Times-Picayune archiveSaid Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson: 'We should have a selection process, and if you are deserving you are put into the field — and you get to compete in the postseason.'
Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson estimated a playoff would generate $700 million annually for college football.
Meanwhile, Dan Wetzel, the co-author of "Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series," said he was part of a group that did a study that showed a college football playoff could potentially generate more than five times what the BCS doles out. That would be around $750 million.
But to maximize its earning potential, the NCAA would have to seize control of its postseason, Wetzel said. Unlike in other sports, such as basketball and baseball, the NCAA doesn't run the postseason. Instead, the bowls, conferences, and to a degree, ESPN, control the postseason. The bowls and conferences pick the teams, and ESPN picks the majority of the playing dates.
"We did a very detailed (study), and $750 million was a number we came up with," Wetzel said. "I think it's undeniable that hundreds of millions of dollars are on the table. What you have now is, only one game matters. With a playoff you'd have multiple games that do well. But the NCAA has to take control of it, away from bowl committees. The NFL doesn't let somebody else run the AFC championship game."
Waters, who conceded that the BCS system might need some changes, said he isn't sure that a playoff format could rake in the type of cash that some playoff proponents are predicting.
"You know I love these guys that are saying a 16-team playoff would bring in a billion dollars," Waters said. "I haven't seen that money yet. I haven't seen anybody step up and say they'd give it that kind of money. If that person is out there, bring your checkbook -- and let's talk. But the guys that are paying for it now are the bowls and the television. That's where the money is coming from."
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in December 2010 he would consider creating and funding a playoff format for college football.
"You can do something the whole country wants done," Cuban said at the time.
Before any decisions can be made, Waters said he and the other conference commissioners will have to sit down with the bowl executives and the executives at ESPN, which televises 32 of the 35 bowl games.
"I think you have to listen to them," Waters said. "They are partners. They are not the CEOs of it, but they are certainly partners. We can't do it without them."
Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore, whose team plays LSU in the BCS championship game on Monday night at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, agreed.
"My primary thought is that, whatever comes down, I feel strongly that the current bowls need to be a part of it and need to maintain their importance," Moore said. "That's particularly the case with the traditional majors (Sugar, Rose, Orange, and Fiesta, and Moore included the Cotton). I would hope that those traditions remain relevant. The bowl system has done so much for college football that it must be a part of any new scenario that would come along."
Finding a system
It appears that Mike Slive, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference which, for the first time in BCS history, has two teams playing for the national title -- and has produced the national champion in the past five seasons -- is resigned to the fact that change is on the way.
But Slive doesn't support a full playoff system. His model would seed four teams in a semifinal, keeping the bowl system intact, to determine the national championship teams.
Slive also proposed a plus-one format in 2008, but it was met by strong opposition. Lately, though, the idea is gaining traction.
"I see there may be some support for that concept moving forward," Slive said. "To the extent that there is, I will be pleased to be a part of that discussion in the next year are so."
Count LSU's Joe Alleva among the athletic directors who don't support a full playoff system.
"The system we have right now, while it's not perfect, every game is a playoff," Alleva said. "The way it is right now, there is so much interest in the college regular season. I just can't ever imagine college presidents and athletic directors buying a 16-team playoff system at the end of the year because it puts so much stress on those kids.
"In a roundabout way I would be OK with a final four playoff system and use the current bowls where No. 1 played No. 4 and No. 2 and No. 3 played, with the winner going to the national championship. I could go for that. Anything more than that would be just too much."
Still, others argue that the plus-one system isn't inclusive enough and still would leave some on the outside looking in.
That's why some are supporting Thompson's 16-team playoff format.
Under that plan, it would be easier for champions of all 11 FBS conferences to qualify for the postseason, as long as a team is ranked among the top 30 in the nation. The rest of the tournament would be filled with at-large selections, and a committee would determine the seeding. Teams not making the tournament could play in minor bowls.
"Even though that's not the perfect scenario, at least it's a scenario that takes away the most damaging part," Dickson said.
Meanwhile, others are calling for the FBS to adopt the Football Championship Subdivision playoff format of 20 teams that gives the top 12 teams a first-round bye.
The NCAA oversees massive tournaments in men's and women's basketball and baseball and softball, along with its other sports. But opponents to such a format said there could be too much travel, and expenses could be too high, even noting that the FCS champions often lose money during the postseason.
"Everybody keeps trying to make it fit into a basketball bracket," Waters said. "In my mind, that's a problem. We don't make baseball fit into a basketball bracket, and we don't make golf fit into a basketball bracket. We have got to think outside the box on the term bracket. The I-AA bracket doesn't work.
"There's an answer out there, but I don't know what it is."
Quote
Originally Posted by Hudsheen#winnin
Re: Football Bowl Subdivision nearing a playoff?
