Hardcore college football fans across the country undoubtedly will be tuned in for the College Football Playoff. But what about casual fans outside SEC, ACC and Big 12 country?
With the Pac-12 and Big Ten not represented in the four-team playoff, a TV sports viewership analyst said interest could be tempered on the West Coast, upper Midwest and Northeast.
The campuses of Clemson, Georgia and Alabama are in close proximity in the Southeast — Clemson and Georgia are just 75 miles apart. Oklahoma is the outlier, a good day’s drive west of Alabama.
“I think it’s too regional this year,” said Jon Lewis, editor of Sports Media Watch. “That hurts in every sport — unless it’s the Super Bowl.”
I had planned on a post in praise of Barrett Sallee’s piece arguing that further playoff expansion is unjustified, but in truth, I’d just be wasting my time.
It’s seeing crap like the above normalized that makes me fully aware of the reality that I’ve already lost the playoff expansion debate, and decisively at that. The glory of college football, its greatest attribute, is its unabashed regional appeal. That appeal is being tossed aside because the morons running the sport are convinced that ESPN knows best as it directs their attention towards the casual fan. I don’t use the term morons casually here; these are the same people who have debased the value of college basketball’s regular season by mining March Madness for casual fans like they were loose change stuck in the cushions of the NCAA’s couch.
You’d think the Delanys and Sankeys would know better. The problem isn’t that they don’t. It’s that they think they do.
Get The Picture 
“With the Pac-12 and Big Ten not represented in the four-team playoff, a TV sports viewership analyst said interest could be tempered on the West Coast, upper Midwest and Northeast.”
Interest is already tempered in these areas, so the gripe here makes no sense. Where I live in the D.C. area, nobody talks CFB – it’s all about the NFL only. And if, say, Maryland made the playoffs, that needle wouldn’t move a lick. You knew this was coming, where talk of putting the four best teams in would morph into complaints of regional bias and such because, after all, the majority of the top programs are in the south.
I have a solution: get Trump involved and have him forcibly remove top HS athletes from their homes throughout the south and resettle them elsewhere in equitable fashion. I think Justin Fields would love Maine and Zamir White would look great in cowboy hat on a remote range in northern Montana.
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Pardon the lecturing, but remember “net marginal revenue” from Econ 101? To put it more coarsely, as long as the cow gives milk they’ll keep squeezing.
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The risk they run is that they cross the line that devalues the regular season broadcast package. They’re not there yet, but I don’t doubt they’ll push the envelope too far one day, because that’s what they do.
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Agreed, because they’re just regular people who cannot tell when they’ve gone too far except in hindsight.
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Nah. I think there was never really a debate on 8 teams. 4 teams was to test the waters, 8 is and always was the goal. I agree with you that CFB will soon be a watered down version of what we are passionate about. I disagree with you that they will push the envelope too far. The WWL operates the marionette that is the NCAA and is opening the envelope slowly enough that future fans are being inculcated to it and don’t realize the difference. Fans like you and I can blog and comment until we our typing thumbs bleed, it wont change a thing. Face it Bluto, we are dinosaurs.
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You are actually correct for once with this phrasing, they can go too far but not there yet. 8 teams is only 6%, inclusive while remaining exclusive. This would return value to the conference championships again, make the national audience buy into the playoff, and remove obstacles to provide an objective path, free of political manipulation.
Four was doomed to fail with five conferences not wanting to be be dissed. Add USC, ohio, UCF, and the next highest rated (Wisky this year) and everyone would have played the same, and buy into the winner as being a national champion. And this gets done without all the venom and trash talking, there will never be 100% satisfaction, but you can get the bitching group down to 5% or less. You simply cannot say “you are not worthy” when there is so little interaction between the conferences, the complaints are justified.
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Good point. With an 8-team playoff, all Power 5 champs are in plus 3 at-large; one of those at-large might be the highest rated Group of 5.
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Wut?
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If you don’t think there would be more widespread interest in the playoff, and the last half of the regular season schedule, as a result of having every conference represented (as well as all Group of 5 schools having a representative) then we just don’t see college fans’ behavior the same way. There is a decent degree of hate/forced apathy by not feeling they are involved, or were snubbed by the playoff setup. I cannot tell you if that improve viewership 10%, 25%, or more, but people tend to support activities when they feel they were involved, or at least can relate to. I would say viewership was higher last year on the West Coast with Washington in, than it will be this time around with USC excluded. And I mean in more than just the Seattle area. Same for the Midwest.
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As pointed out in a tweet the Senator posted, if they go with 8 including P5 conference champions, Auburn and Wisconsin get in also. So the SEC and B10 championship games didn’t matter anyway. I agree with your model if you want all conferences represented, but disagree if you want the most deserving teams.
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And somehow, guaranteeing both the winner and loser of a conference championship game entry to the playoff means that both teams would still let it all hang out. Why? Because that’s what would be nice. Of course it’s not logical, but it’s not intended to be.
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Except that this season there would have been NO U.S.C. Auburn came in ahead which leaves 3 SEC teams and the same howls of discontent.
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Ooops (just realized S.C. #8), so they in. But I don’t see how UCF gets an exemption.
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USC would have been in due to the PAC12 championship win.
Until the Group of 5 separates and has their own championship, I feel there has to be some hope for those 60 or so teams to have a path. UCF won a championship and were the highest rated. I understand they don’t bring much to the playoff, but there is a spot and that inclusiveness to give all those players a dream and hope is worth that to me. As a #8 seed playing #1 on the road, they would have to be very impressive to advance beyond one game. But, no quality bitching either.
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I have probably watched more American Athletic Conference football than anyone on here as the memphis tigers are my second favorite (and hometown) team. I can tell you unequivocally that the AAC is basically garbage football. It’s like watching 7 on 7 summer camps.
Auburn is going to go in there, hold serve a few times on Defense, force UCF into a 3 and out that takes 20 seconds off the clock and then obliterate the tired UCF defense. That baby is gonna snowball on UCF worse than it did on us back in November.
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…….and I fully admit, early this season I wanted the Cinderella component. But as Memphis’ prospects for a Peach Bowl stayed on the table I watched more and more of this league and…sadly, I must say, it’s pure trash.
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as is often the case, it’s not what the “smart guys” don’t know that is the problem. It’s what they THINK they know that isn’t true.
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I’d say, 81, that’s almost invariably the case.
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What would the SEC Championship be like if both teams are already a lock for the playoff?
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Well, we could have rested players. We could have sped up the game by staying in bounds and not calling time outs. And then taken a knee to end the halves early. You know, kind of make it a practice game.
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Yeah, kind of like a game against Austin Peay!
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Too many “journalists” with not enough to write about considering the team he covers was 4-8 and dunzo for 2017.
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This is part of the larger “equity” movement, that mandates equality in outcome over equality in opportunity. Sports has been the last bastion of meritocracy in America. When you lose meritocracy in sports, what is left?
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I can’t see that. This is about money.
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But they can’t say that, so they use “equity” as a fig leaf for money and power they seek. Greed is ignoble, so they assign fake nobility to give it politically correct cover. Who can argue with “equity”?
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When the fact that college sports is ‘regional’ is accepted as a criticism instead of celebrated as what makes it special, then yes, the patient is already dead. The doctors just don’t realize it yet.
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While I can agree you can go too far, there is something to be said for an expanded playoff making regular season games more meaningful for a number of teams.
If we lose to ND in the opener and Auburn at the Barn, how crucial is the SECCG in a four team format? Probably not as much, as we are likely left out of a four team mix.
It’s not hard to imagine an eight team format broadening that scope.
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An eight-team playoff this year would have rendered the Big Ten championship game meaningless, other than to establish the seedings for OSU and Wisconsin.
It’s not hard to imagine at all.
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Agreed, though as it turned out, it was meaningless in the current format.
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Well, I should correct, it was meaningless for OSU fans.
For Badgers it cost them their ticket.
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That’s because there are rarely more than four teams deserving of national title consideration. (A lot of times, not even four.)
We’re not going to get playoff expansion because there are all these great teams getting screwed out of their just reward. We’re going to get it because the P5 conferences want more money.
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Fair point, I don’t recall ever debating whether or not No. 5 was more deserving of the NC than No. 1.
My point was more that I don’t necessarily buy into the diminishment of regular season games.
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As for your first sentence, 2007 is the only recent year I think there was a wide open debate on that.
With regard to your last sentence, that’s purely subjective. For some, playoff expansion will be welcomed. For others, bracket creep will be death.
There’s no right or wrong on that, just changing wallets. 😉
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That lose to the gators in 2003 means nothing if there were a four team playoff.
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I understand what you mean, but that is a double edged sword.
If my team must go undefeated to win the NC, after losing my first game pretty much every other game is meaningless.
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And I understand what you mean, but my opinion is that is part of what makes college football so special. The national championship is one of the most difficult trophies to win. At the end of the 2007 season, I believed that UGA could smoke anyone. It’s too bad that couldn’t even show up against UT that year.
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Right. The regular season was special in college football. Every other sport had changed the regular season into a seeding exercise. If you could just be good enough during the regular season to get into the postseason, and get hot in the postseason, you were the champions. That’s why people remember the 2007 Patriots (16-0) as a disappointment compared to the Giants (9-7), who won the championship.
I used to think baseball did it best. Best team in the American League played the best team in the National League in a 7-game series. Then they added divisions and wild card teams and now you have to manage FOR the postseason. It’s an entirely new season distinct from the regular season. Whatever. It’s one of the big reasons I haven’t seen a baseball game in years.
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And at least with just 4 teams, the options of making the playoff after 1 loss are somewhere on the continuum between Maybe to Probably…….which is why I think we’re in the perfect sweet spot. Neither precluded nor excluded, meaning you can’t walk into the game resting on your laurels nor are you forced to throw in the towel after a tough defeat.
8 teams almost guarantees that epic top 5ish showdowns between UGA-AU and the Iron Bowl have way less meaning going forward because of where they are on the calendar and what the repercussions of already being in the Top 5 that late on the schedule. 4 is the Sweet Spot.
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And I certainly agree that money will be the motivating factor.
I don’t always see that as the dirty demon that others do. If it grows a sport that is under a lot of negative pressure, maybe that’s a good thing. Perhaps it helps fund the player payments that many call for.
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Money is fine and great. Like you, I don’t begrudge a business the opportunity to make a buck. It would just be nice if the folks who run the sport could manage to increase their income without changing the fundamental nature of the activity that produces said income.
I had season tickets to UGA for 22 years. I’ve never paid to see an NFL game. This year, I gave up my UGA tickets. I still went to a few games, but I doubt I’ll ever have season tickets again. And over time, I’m likely to see fewer and fewer games in person. The game is already being groomed for TV. The stadiums are being groomed for skyboxes and premium seats over general bleacher seating. It leaves me out in the cold.
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One loss Wisconsin doesn’t deserve a shot?
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Big 10 Championship would mean exactly the same thing to OSU and Wisconsin as it means this year.
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Just like the winner of the conference basketball tournament.
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Actually, nothing like the winner of the conference basketball tournament.
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If it was 5 conference champs, 1 mid major and the two “best” who were left, why would the big 10 championship not matter? If Ohio State lost, you think they would have gotten in?
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I also believe that conference championship losers can get in, but the optics still have to be good. If all the non champions are competing for 2 slots, they can’t just take a week off and risk getting blown out.
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Conference championship games are just as much money grabs as the playoff, and with an expanded pool they wouldn’t be necessary. From where I sit they’ve never meant much to begin with. Especially when only two teams had a shot to make it into the National Championship Game.
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Most of y’all are touching on the point where they (8 team proponents) lose me. When 5 conference champs are automatic we will likely see championship game losers get in also, and further it’s likely a division runner up will get in too. This year it would have been GA, AU, AL all in the playoff and if this doesn’t bother someone they’re watching a different sport than I am. The system was perfect this year where the championship games were actually deciding factors, the kids knew the stakes and the games were tremendously entertaining because of the high stakes.
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“… we will likely see championship game losers get in also, and further it’s likely a division runner up will get in too. ”
I mean, I know you know what is wrong with this statement.
This year, sans Alabama getting in on reputation over a conference champ, we basically had an 8 team playoff.
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And that was perfectly fine (the almost 8 team playoff). What we had this year was kind of like the Regionals portion of high school football playoffs…….an 8 team NATIONAL playoff will render many of those late season Regional mega-duels, from the rivalry weekends to Championship Saturday, way less meaningful.
Yes, Bama got in with just a 4 team as a divisional loser. But do you want to permanently rubber stamp the loser of epic Iron Bowl matchups as ALWAYS in the playoff ? Talk about devaluing the game before it even kicks off.
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I don’t want to expand beyond 4, and want the conference championships to matter, but I would love to see the option of 1-2 “wild card” games, perhaps the Monday after conference championship weekend, with the top 2-4 teams that are NOT in a conference championship game. Make any undefeated G5 and 1-loss P5 non-conference contenders (including ND) play the extra game against the next highest rated non-conference opponents if they want to be considered for the CFP. The committee’s decision could have waited another couple of days and this year would have featured Bama v. UCF. Last year, it would have made Ohio State play Colorado or Oklahoma.
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So UCF would play Memphis on Saturday and Alabama on Monday ? Man that’s brutal.
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Perhaps those Big 10 and PAC fans could spend their time re-watching the tOSU vs. Iowa game, or the USC vs. ND game. That way, they can watch teams from their favored conferences and not have to put up with the likes of us.
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I typed out a whole long Pawsish argument of why this is about ensuring Northern teams a shot….but then I thought…If that’s true, why didn’t they select Ohio St. this year? They had an opportunity to practice the balance thing, but declined to take it.
So now we have, and rightfully so, three out of four teams from right danged here!..You can eat breakfast in Clemson, lunch in Athens and still make it to Dreamland in time for supper…without breaking the speed limit.
The only way they can fix this is to have 8 teams and match the southern teams against each other in the first round to pare them down. That’s what they’ll do.
But why didn’t they do it this year? They could have paired UGA against Clemson, and OSU against OK and there you go. Maybe they have more integrity than some of us have given them credit for.
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I’m staunchly anti-expansion for the sake of preventing bracket creep, but I’m coming around to the notion that going to 6 might do more to stop the bleeding than going to 8 would. Give the P5 champs an auto bid to the playoff. I realize this will put some bad multi-loss teams in the mix, but the structure will make it VERY hard for a 6-seed to win. The final slot goes to the highest-rated G5/Indy team. I’d love to require that they’re conference champs, but that creates a ND problem. I’d even be OK with a threshold ranking to let one of those teams in…say, top 12, perhaps. This gives the G5 teams a pathway in, but only if they prove to be potentially excellent. They’re likely going to either have to be undefeated or have played a stout schedule. And if there’s nobody worthy of that sixth spot, then you allow a wild card non-champ in. This gives incentive for a 1-loss team that loses its division to keep playing (for instance, say Florida has been eliminated from the SECCG but still has FSU to go), but makes it extremely hard for a non-champ to get a second chance in most years.
Make the 3/6 and 4/5 seeds play the week of Christmas. The 1 and 2 seeds get to rest and aren’t forced to play any extra games beyond what they do now. They’ll be fresh against a team that just played the week before and their fans get the advantage of planning travel for the semifinal and buying up tickets. This actually makes getting the 1 or 2 seeds even more important than they are now-ask yourself, is Bama any worse for failing and getting the 4-seed this year?
It’s a bit like what MLB did a few years back. They expanded the field but actually made life harder for the wild card teams. That’s a good thing. Plus, it makes the argument for going any farther a heck of a lot more difficult to make.
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The problem is the binary nature of the sport. One team vs. another. Go to 3 teams on the field at the same time and the problem is solved.
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I think they should mandate you have to be a Conference Champion to be considered..ND be damned.
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Read Sallee’s piece and could barely get through the first paragraph. He lost me with his argument that Bama shouldn’t be in the playoff. I find it really hard to respect anyone’s argument that we should value division champions, and conference championships (both a result of money grab power plays), who in the same breath tells me that I shouldn’t want more playoff teams because it’s all about money.
It’s a complete joke to me that the BCS would be better this year. Bama would be favored over any team in the country on a neutral site, and Sallee thinks keeping them out of the playoff would have been the better option for crowning a champion because Bama “didn’t win their division.” That’s just a dramatic way of saying that they lost a rivalry game, on the road, to a top 10 team. There is reason Bama is a 4 seed favored over a 1 seed.
Futhermore, the Iron Bowl wasn’t meaningless, it meant everything to Auburn. If they didn’t win then they would have had no shot at the playoff, and if you think Bama didn’t want to destroy Auburn’s shot at the post season while solidifying their own then you’re insane. In hind site you could argue that it was devalued after the fact, but Bama didn’t know they were going to get in after a loss to Auburn. Saban was biting his nails on Selection Sunday. The game was important at the time it was played and that’s all that matters IMO.
6 teams is perfect to me, I used to want 8, but I think that would be too much. I do concede that there is an aspect of devaluing the regular season, but that pales in comparison to the value of meaningful playoff games (at least for me). With 6 teams the top two get a bye, and whether we go to 6 or 8 I’d like to see home and away games in the first round. That will likely never happen, but in the event of playoff expansion perhaps the governing powers will at least give some consideration to playing in the higher seed’s general region if not home state.
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The Senator’s headstone or written on his ashes. I fought the fight and 8 is tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many.
I do not see how 8 diminishes the season and if it applies to just seeding—so what? You still get a playoff and a lot of interest, even if all 8 teams are from east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio.
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