So, they went and did it, and rather quickly, at that. There was no particular crisis, manufactured or otherwise, that forced the hand of college football’s powers that be to expand the playoffs. (Remember The Rematch? Hell, wasn’t that a quaint concern. There’s a possibility now of, say, Alabama and Georgia facing off three times in a season. Good times, for sure.) There was just what there always has been.
For all the talk about student-athlete experience, the “sanctity” of the bowls and collaboration on Thursday, Tranghese summed up exactly why the playoff has expanded as if suddenly in a time warp. He quoted some wisdom from his old boss, the late great Dave Gavitt.
“Just follow the money,” Tranghese said, “and you’re going to find out what’s going to happen.”
What that lacks in profundity it makes up for in accuracy.
Anyway, it’s done, at least for now (more on that in a bit). Here are some random takes on what strikes me as the most significant postseason decision in college football’s history.
They’ve embraced the hybrid. I posted this a couple of weeks ago:
What the geniuses who run college football are about to do is foist a hybrid subjective/objective set up on us that’s going to set up a negative feedback loop guaranteed to bring even more expansion. What I mean by that is an eight-team playoff field comprised of the five P5 conference champs, the top rated G5 team, plus two more at-large teams (in most seasons, one of those will be Notre Dame) is going to give us the worst of both worlds in that we’re bound to get some conference champs that are worse teams than some of the teams passed over because there aren’t enough at-large spots to accommodate them.
Lost in the excitement of yesterday’s announcement is that the move to twelve doesn’t eliminate that possibility.
Most energy is focused on how the new system will reward the Big Ten and SEC with more playoff spots – and they will – but also consider that the new eligibility will allow the six “highest-ranked conference champions.”
This matters because several Power 5 teams in the top 12 would be bumped from the playoff because the sixth-highest ranked conference champion would have to be selected, even if they are ranked below the No. 12 team. Four Power 5 teams ranked in the top 12 over the last seven years would have not been included in the College Football Playoff.
This would have eliminated No. 12 Georgia Tech in 2014, No. 12 LSU in 2015, No. 12 Oklahoma State in 2016 and No. 12 Auburn, which defeated No. 5 Alabama, in 2019 to make room for Group of 5 schools.
There are going to be a lot of upset Power 5 programs when No. 17 Memphis, for example, wins its conference.
That instability will be a root motivation for further expansion. As I noted before, that’s a feature, not a bug, of the new arrangement — at least as long as there’s somebody out there who will pay for it. Sixteen will come about as quickly as twelve did, I suspect.
Notre Dame’s gonna be just fine, y’all. There was a lot of glee expressed yesterday about Notre Dame’s supposed predicament over being locked out of a bye week because of its independent status. It’s funny, though, that ND’s athletic director didn’t seem particularly gloomy about it.
Don’t cry for me, South Bend. Why should he be gloomy? If the Irish qualify as one of the top eight teams at the end of the regular season, they’ll host a home playoff game. And, because of their independent status, they don’t play in a conference championship game, meaning they’ve got a bye week in December, anyway. Notre Dame is pretty close to an annual lock in a 12-team field. They’re doing alright, thanks for asking.
We’re one of college football’s four best teams and all we got was this lousy bye week. As that last paragraph indicates, one of the quirks with the new arrangement is that the top four teams get byes, while the next four get to host the first round of the playoffs in their home stadiums, where they’ll get to charge their faithful fans playoff level ticket prices. That’s some sweet cash that the Alabamas and Clemsons of the college football world will be expected to forego, all for the greater good. Sure, they could let the quarterfinals be played on campus, too, but for now, it seems the suits want to make sure the bowls get their piece of the action. If the hybrid nature of the playoffs is Reason 1A for further expansion, I expect this will be Reason 1B.
Wither the bowls? There’s some give and take here. As I just mentioned, there’s clearly some sentiment for the bowls being the host for two rounds of the playoffs. But…
Complicating matters is that the working group doesn’t call the shots about the bowls entirely on its own. ESPN will have considerable say in the matter, considering its financial stake in the bowl system. Honestly, I’m not sure how that plays out yet.
Greg Sankey is a happy man. It’s unlikely that the SEC will have less than two participants in a 12-team field. In some years, it’ll have more.
The conference would have placed four teams in the 12-team field in 2018 but only one in 2016, and 2019 would have included three, though the argument could have been made for four (more on how a top-12 SEC team would have been left out of the playoff below).
Since the creation of the playoff in 2014, the SEC would have been represented an average of 2.7 times per year. (The SEC has averaged 1.1 teams per year, with two slotted in the four-team playoff in 2017).
I expect that the first time it has three or even four, there will be some gnashing of teeth about sharing postseason shares equally across conferences. I expect that Sankey will smile and ignore that.
What will suck is all the air going out of the SECCG most seasons, when all that will be at stake is a higher seed in the payoffs.
It’s a mirage. Yeah, there’s opportunity. And “playoff” on a coach’s resume looks good. But the reality is that we know what’s gonna happen when a G5 squad rolls into Athens to play in the first round of the CFP and it won’t be pretty. The people responsible for the new setup know it, too. The cringiest admission of the day:
Yeah, they know.
Fan friendly, my ass. What to say to fans expected to pony up to watch their schools play three or four rounds of postseason football, most of which will involve significant travel and expense? Well ($$)…
Asked about whether the working group was ignorant of the pressures on fans who would be asked to potentially travel three times if their team makes the national title game, Bowlsby’s answer was “I would suggest that there is a pretty good alternative.” So, basically … They can watch it on TV.
These are the same folks who spent years fretting over how they can keep their fan bases coming to games. Welcome to the new math, people.
The death of regional passion. Mickey’s won. ESPN is getting what it wants, a shift from emphasizing the sport’s regional roots, which have always been part of its unique character, to a more homogeneous national focus like every other sport, which is what it’s used to promoting. This isn’t exactly new, either, but rather a culmination of what was put in play when they elected to go to the four-team field.
More than anything, that’s why I think this is such a fundamental change in the sport we cherish. No, I’m not going to make any over the top pronouncements of this being the death of college football or anything silly like that. But, I’ve got the feeling college football is devolving into just another sport for me now.
I’m not going to deny that I expect a slow, steady diminishing of enthusiasm on my part. It’ll be piecemeal, something I’ll feel every time I’m expected to shell out for an event that has less import than it once did. And at some point, I’ll probably find myself wondering why I care all that much. I expect college football will make out just fine without me. We’ll see.
Well thought out piece. Enjoyed reading it and I find myself in agreement
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Thank you, sir.
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Senator, what do you think the effect of the expanded playoff will be on the non-NY6 bowl games? What do you think will happen with teams that lose in the play-in round and the quarterfinals in terms of the bowl season?
My guess is that the quarterfinal will serve as the bowl game for the losers and that the play-in round losers will be “bowl eligible.” For the non-NY6 games (think Orlando, Jacksonville l, Tampa, Charlotte, Nashville, San Antonio, Las Vegas, etc.), I think those cities are going to save the powder in their kegs to bid for national championship games by shutting down their bowl game or by reducing payouts dramatically.
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Nobody’s playing in two postseason games except those who are in the CFP and win.
The bowls will survive in general, because ESPN’s financial stake in them is huge. Will some go by the wayside as a result of playoff expansion? Maybe.
What I wonder is if the NCAA eventually drops the 6-win bowl eligibility requirement.
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I’m guessing those pay-outs are going down because ESPN will be paying out for the playoff.
The reason for my question on bowl eligibility is that coaches are going to want to have that time that was traditional bowl practices to start spring preparation. The teams that lose in the play-in and quarterfinal rounds (which I believe will happen immediately after championship weekend) won’t get that time that they were getting in the current system because they spent the those weeks in game preparation mode. The losing coaches are going to want that practice time even if it’s only for an exhibition where they have a ton of opt-outs.
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ESPN doesn’t lose money on bowl games. The schools and perhaps the bowls themselves do, but not Mickey.
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That makes sense. I guess my comment still holds. Will cities/bowl committees reduce payouts to bid for future championship games? I’m guessing those will be as competitive as they are now with the money going directly to the CFP.
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Agree…
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It will be interesting how the university presidents vote on this.
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Great post, and thank you.
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Watching a marquee player suffer a career ending injury in game 17 of his senior season would be depressing. He wouldn’t make millions in the NFL but at least the CFP would have made some extra dough.
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“but let’s not get confused.”, let there be no mistake, it’s gonna be smoke and mirrors during the “sale” portion of this conversation, once it gets boiled down and the genie is out the bottle, the finals have the same suspects playing (with an occasional cinderella)…nothing will have changed in the “it ju$t mean$ more” world….
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Sounds exhausting…”This game’s for all the marbles, no wait, the next game is, no wait, it’s the one after that…oh…It’s Clemson vs Alabama…again.”
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Just distract the rubes by redefining “success.”. And cash in while you’re conning them! Sounds great for the suits in Bristol, and maybe some ADs. The administrators who run mediocre programs are now “x years in the playoffs!” The administrators who run successful programs now have the promise of more cash, plenty of which will end up paying for their raises and perks.
There is no way there are 12 legit contenders for a NC in any year in my lifetime. I can’t think of one with 5. Based on the number of semifinal CFP blowouts, there aren’t really 4 most years. This is what happens when the participation trophy advocates and the soulless bean counters interests align.
College football has never been more popular than it is now. There is zero need for this from a football standpoint. That football media wants more football to media about is predictable. That TV execs want more product to sell is predictable. That ADs want more cash and more ways to proclaim their season WAS A SUCCESS, WE MADE THE Playoff is predictable. All of them expecting the sucker fan bases to eagerly belly up, like the rats hitting the bar for more food pellets, is predictable.
None of it is an improvement for the actual game. Make the regular season less meaningful. Put in a couple if layers of blowouts in the first couple of rounds. Watch the regular season ratings dip. Watch attendance dip. Watch the money grubbers demand expansion to generate the cash they want.
Pitiful.
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I just don’t buy “bound to be conference champs that are worse than teams that don’t make it to the playoffs”. If a team is not the best team in their conference, then they don’t deserve to be called the best team in the nation either. A playoff of the conference champions would keep the regular season important and provide us with a season long champion rather than someone who maybe finished stronger.
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The problem with a playoff of conference champions is that it would require such realignment of the sport that it would be unrecognizable to have competitive balance. Does the WAC champion deserve to get in over the SEC championship loser? Does the C-USA champion deserve to get in over unbeaten Notre Dame?
A “champions only” 8 team playoff from 8 10-team conferences (with 5-team divisions) would be incredible. It would really be a 16-team battle royale, but it would require the Power 5 + a few to make it happen with radical conference realignment.
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If the argument is for more varied participants and for conference championships to matter — then having all conference champions be the pool of choices would have been the recommendation. That’s not happening with the proposed format. Instead, the illusion of the possible (a Group of 5 champ has a “chance”) is created while at the same time getting the top 4 teams in the country into the field. In the end, it gets us back to where we started (with today’s current state) but causing more harm than good along the way.
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It’s definitely today with more participation.
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The 2nd place SEC team may be better than all the others, hell yes, they deserve to be in.
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If you are the 2nd place team in the SEC, then by default, you aren’t the best team in the country.
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but what about conference teams that don’t play. (ie georgia and alabama in 2017) Any conference that doesn’t play a full round robin, the trophy winner is somewhat of a fabricated construct as to who is “the best.”
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And 2017 is even more of a convoluted example because then you had Auburn who whipped both of said teams in the regular season. That’s why it’s tricky going with conference champions in leagues with more than 10 teams.
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Strongly disagree. Coastal Carolina won the AAC in 2020, right? Then lost to Liberty in the Cure Bowl. I’d call that solid evidence they were worse than teams that don’t make it to the playoffs.
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Conference USA
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Sorry, Sun Belt
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I give it less than 5 years and this will be a 24 team round robin. The importance of conference, even division championships will go away. This will water down rivalries and to some degree take away the incentive for a Georgia to play a OSU. Just get your coin total up and play well within your conference and you’ll be in the play-offs and anything can happen in the play-offs. Look at baseball…The average fan doesn’t even get their juices flowing until March. The NCAA has finally found a way to marginalize Saturday’s in the fall, until you get to late November. I hate this…
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baseball – should have been basketball (apologies)
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Great post.
I’ll add that It’s especially frustrating to me that we are stuck with these 14 team conferences that were conceived at the zenith of cable TV and the BCS. No way you would structure a conference this way under a 12 team playoff format. The new playoff will probably be instituted before Georgia goes on the road to College Station in 2024, a mere 12 years since TAMU joined the league.
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Your last sentence makes me shake my head.
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Hey, but we got to play Mizzou 12 times instead of those extra games against LSU, Bama, Ole Miss, Miss St, and Arky. Plus those sweet back to back road trips to Auburn.
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Great post, Senator. I wish you could get Seth “Sellout” Emerson to take some questions as he along with the other college football writers at The Athletic sell that an expanded playoff is good for the regular season:
https://theathletic.com/2644891/2021/06/10/college-football-playoff-expansion-proposal-whats-right-whats-wrong-and-whod-benefit-most-from-the-12-team-format/?source=user_shared_article
This thing came down exactly as I said it would except for the 6 highest ranked conference champions and the treatment of ND as a 5-12 seed (of course, what that means is they get a bye because they don’t have a game to play the week before).
For the sport’s purists who believe in sanctity of the regular season, this is a sad day. As Lewis Grizzard once wrote, “Elvis is dead, and I don’t feel so good myself.”
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Here’s our favorite seasons this century with the new format:
2017
First round byes:
Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio State
Remaining seeds (5-12):
Alabama, Wisconsin, Auburn, USC, Penn State, Miami, Washington, UCF
We end up with the winner of Washington/Wisconsin.
2012 (using BCS rankings)
First round byes:
Alabama, Oregon, Kansas State, Stanford
Remaining seeds:
Notre Dame, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Northern Illinois, Wisconsin
We end up hosting South Carolina in the 1st round to play Oregon.
2007 (assumes former Power 6 – Big East)
First round byes
Ohio State, LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma
Remaining seeds:
Georgia, Missouri, Southern Cal, Kansas, West Virginia, Hawaii, Arizona State, Florida
We host the Handbags in a rematch to play Oklahoma.
2005
First round byes:
USC, Texas, Penn State, Georgia
Remaining seeds:
Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, Miami, Auburn, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, LSU
2002
First round byes:
Miami, Ohio State, Georgia, USC
Remaining seeds:
Iowa, Washington State, Oklahoma, Kansas St, Notre Dame, Texas, Michigan, Penn State
Georgia plays winner of Washington State/Michigan in quarterfinals
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2018: Penn State at Georgia
2019: Memphis at Georgia
2020: Georgia at Cincinnati
I’m guessing we’d have a game in 2003 (10-3 SECE), 2004 (9-2), and 2008 (9-3) as well. We were 9-3 in 2011 and won the east, too. Probably in the conversation in 2014 and 2015 with a shot at a road playoff game.
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I had the ‘18 and ‘19 games in a comment earlier in the week. If I’m looking at the rankings right in 2014, we’re on the outside looking in. In 2015, we never appeared in the CFP top 25.
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2020 ends up as follows:
Top 4: Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma
Next 8:
Notre Dame, TAMU, FU, Cincy, Georgia, Iowa St., Indiana, Coastal Carolina (as the 6th highest conf champ)
Georgia @ Cincy to play Bama.
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Senator, you wrote:
“But, I’ve got the feeling college football is devolving into just another sport for me now.
I’m not going to deny that I expect a slow, steady diminishing of enthusiasm on my part. ”
I am right there with you. It hit me hard when I saw how UGA dealt with CMR over the years. My enthusiasm for the sport is far less than it use to be and will continue grow less. One of the most exciting seasons I can remember was when Miami went from 5th place to number 1 and jumped over an undefeated Auburn in the polls. But even back then, money began to ruin the game as the bowls started inviting teams way too early. I remember Virginia getting invited real early to the Sugar Bowl only to go on and lose their last 3 games. That led to the BCS era and even more money. Money is not evil in and of itself, but man, when people love it above other things, it will bring damage with it.
The sport has changed a lot over the last 40 years. There’s a reason my monicker is now “Former Fan”. I see where this will end and it will end with me being a “Former Fan”.
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Sure, all the usual money players had a hand in this, but why do I think the shadow of Vegas looms over this the most?
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Great post Senator! Thank you! The one thing nobody has mentioned is the upset. I think this system makes it less likely for the best team in the nation to win the national championship because it has to play yet another game. That’s what really happened to the Braves when baseball added the Divisional Series. I wonder how much the public will like it when UCF upsets #1 Bama, tOSU loses to Southern Miss and non-conference champ Indiana wins a natty.
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I’m not too much worried about that, because of the lack of parity in cfb. Sure, any given Saturday and all (and injuries), but it doesn’t strike as being all that likely.
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Maybe not every game or even every year but it will happen. The best teams don’t always win.
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Do you really think the 12th seed will be able to run the gauntlet that likely requires them to beat the #5 (away), #4, #1 and #2 (if all of the other games fall according to seeding) in 4 consecutive games?
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Football isn’t nearly as random as basketball. An upset like those described would require a +5 turnover margin.
If there are upsets from low seeds it would be from teams like 2007 or 2012 Georgia. Teams with solid rosters and a couple of L’s. You might get a nobody to win a first round game. Second round? I don’t see that.
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or 2020 Georgia 🤔
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I have long recognized the current 4 team tournament to be something of a spectacle, not at all a “national championship”. This new arrangement is just more of the same. It’s an invitational tournament.
Don’t get me wrong though, it would be great fun to be in it and win it, it’s just not what they are calling it.
Winning the SEC is really what makes me happy for the team and always will be. I just hope something of that remains for a while. As I said the other day, when a team phones it in during a conference championship game because they need to save something for the playoff will be the day I take up golf again.
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That glorious era of SEC football has been on life support ever since Bama started getting to sit it out and still go to the BCS/Playoff. It is officially over the first year this Frankenstein’s Playoff takes place.
It’ll be all about seeding from then on, and nothing more. It was a good run.
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$ankey and his 14 flunkies (sorry, I meant athletic directors) will be quaking in their boots the first time the SECCG doesn’t sell out and the TV ratings start dipping.
They are banking on the fact that the 2 teams in the game will be playing for a first round bye.
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spot on. will i have access to all of my season tix when we host the home game? and, if those are gonna be $475 per or more, how much do I want to pay to go to Atlanta knowing that I’m either dropping thousands on a home game or semi-final trip. Not a problem for them. They’ll just show more commercials and tighten up the camera angles so you can’t see the empty seats in the 300s sections.
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Time to dust off those clubs.
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One question: Is the championship game still going to be on a f^&#ing Monday night?
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Yes…..NFL playoffs rule the day…and the host city wants fans there all weekend.
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Not only that but because your quarterfinals are slated to be around new years, your semis are likely to be on odd days as well. So in addition to neutering your SECCG, now the playoff has its final 3 games in the cold, grey of the post-holiday calendar.
So what’s the play folks ? Save all your $ for the quarterfinals ?
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Totally agree
College basketball used to be a popular neighborhood bar. Now it’s the circus, comes to town in March. College football just committed to that same path.
I used to know the ACC basketball schedule by heart when I was in college and really though my early 30s. 16 games, teams played in order 2 times. No cell phone, no Internet, but I still knew when Duke and NC State were going to face off or Wake Forest was heading to Virginia. Those weren’t even my teams, but I cared a lot about the sport, and I made time to watch.
Now, I don’t even check the scores. I just don’t care. Conference realignment has made a big part of that former interest irrelevant, while conference play has become a boring seeding exhibition for a national tournament. A tournament that 75% of viewers just view as a crash-up derby (Ooooh, did you see [tiny school with 4,000 enrollment] beat [Big State U]?!”) Those viewers are largely gone by the Elite Eight. I’m not even watching tournament games anymore unless UNC is playing or Duke’s trailing in the 2nd half (UNC undergrad; my grandfather was a huge Dawg fan from WNC). And it’s not just me. Friends, men and women, who used to love to talk college basketball barely bring it up anymore. When they do want to talk sports? College football. They still feel connected to it. It’s not just a TV spectacle/NBA launch pad.
And the thing that kills me: athletic directors know this because they see what ESPN is willing to pay for football versus what they’re willing to pay for basketball – because ESPN sees that fan interest and values accordingly. But they all keep pushing CFB in the direction of CBB because they assume that fan interest won’t dissipate with football the same way it did with basketball.
Good luck with that.
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These are the metrics that matter:
“ In 1994, the NCAA announced a seven-year, $1.73 billion deal with CBS, which has broadcast the tournament since 1982.
That was followed by an 11-year, $6 billion deal that started in 2003 and was supplanted by a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal announced in 2010.
That pact—in which CBS partnered with Turner for the first time—was supposed to run through 2024. But in 2016, the NCAA, CBS and Turner reached an eight-year extension that added $8.8 billion to the deal.”
While I hardly ever watch cbb anymore, enough are.
The thing we have to understand is that the serious fans DO NOT MATTER to the people making the decisions. They want to attract the people who watch the Super Bowl and thats the only game that watch all season. 100 million people watch the SB. About a quarter of that watch regular season games. Far more eyes watch during the playoffs than regular season games.
The people who came up with this 12 team format know this.
No matter how much we say that this diminishes regular season games, thats not where the money is for the decision makers.
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If you want a tell for when playoff expansion is approaching its limits, it’s when the broadcast rights start being split up.
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I’d say that its when the networks can spend less money for the product instead of more.
Isn’t the benefit of adding Turner that they can show more basketball content and thus sell more ads?
I’m not suggesting that what they’ve done with cbb makes for a better product. I’m not sure its made it a less profitable product in the meantime.
Doesn’t it come down to the fact that Brittney Spears sells more units than The Velvet Underground? You can blather on about innovation and integrity and art all you want but people buy lots of tickets to Iron Man XII, etc…. The consumer has spoken and he’s a gotdamn moron.
The wallets know they can entice millions of glazed over eyes on couch potatoes to watch playoffs because the tv said its like important and exciting and stuff over and over and over…
The expanded playoff is from the people that brought you this:
Dude made more money than Little Richard AND Jerry Lee Lewis.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (February 4, 2021) – Commissioner Greg Sankey announced Thursday that $657.7 million of total revenue was divided among the 14 universities of the Southeastern Conference for the 2019-20 fiscal year, which ended August 31, 2020.
That number increases substantially with the upgrade of the former CBS package from $55 mill to $300m+.
In other words, you could argue that the entire NCAA basketball postseason is marginally more valuable than the SEC regular season package – which is almost entirely football-driven.
You’re right, but they’re probably wrong. Especially Sankey, without whom expansion is not possible. I would guess in 10-15 years this move is effectively seen as little more than a wealth transfer from the SEC to the playoff pool. By which time Sankey will be sitting on a private beach not giving a crap.
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Couldn’t agree more. Well stated. Devalue the regular season and title game, you eventually flatten / devalue what’s paid for the SEC TV deal.
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When 4 more wild cards are let in, it will be perfect.
/s
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And this sentiment is evergreen. Regardless of size (or until TV money wanes)
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“But they all keep pushing CFB in the direction of CBB because they assume that fan interest won’t dissipate with football the same way it did with basketball.”
See, I’m more cynical than you, ASEF. I think ADs know CFB will become CBB–everybody basically waiting for the playoffs–but are betting it won’t happen quickly enough to hurt them financially.
Let’s say the Dawgs continue to dominate the East year after year, though, so the division title is regularly won by the end of October. Won’t the value of tickets to and TV broadcasts of UGA games plummet in November? Even if the Dawgs lose to Bama in Atlanta, we fans know both teams will be in the playoffs. Dawgs will be guaranteed at least one more far more meaningful game than vs. Mizzou or Charleston Southern, and, depending on the seeding, probably two.
How soon do TV deals and ticket sales reflect the regular season’s huge loss in value?
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It definitely won’t be Sankey’s problem. Or Brooks’. Which makes this an easy call for those people. “It may not be a problem, and if it does become one, it won’t be mine. As long as it’s a short-term gain, I’ll get praises and raises no matter the long-term risks.”
Basically Standard Operating Procedure for American Corporate Leadership.
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Yeah they respect and admire the bowls like I respect and admire all the girls I dated and eventually dumped. “I wish you the best. Goodbye.”
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Other than the playoff bowls, there will be zero interest in the fans. I predict to cover the costs of the playoffs ESPN will end a large number of the KY Jelly bowls. Wait I thing I under estimated Mickey’s need for content now that they have ESPN + to feed. Never mind.
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ESPN makes money off every bowl game it broadcasts.
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Death of SEC championship game eventually. If they are both likely in, why saddle one with a loss that might knock them out? Better off having your 3rd and 4th teams duke it out to get someone a Win that puts them in.
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It’s typically not going to knock the loser out unless you have a lowly rated team coming in. It will be about who gets the SEC bye to the quarterfinals and the week
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to rest.
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The bye week to “rest” while the non-divisional winner (3rd sec team in playoff) rests the week of the SECCG. This is a little jacked.
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Screw Mickey.
As long as the Dawgs play their regional and conference rivals–Flurdah, Fech, Allbarn, 10RC–every non-plague year, and beat the tar out of ’em more often than not, I’ll be a happy man.
Now, if Mickey’s next move is to pluck all the blue bloods from their various conferences and create some super league, I’m done.
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In other words, I don’t care about natties. I care about winning rivalry games, SEC East titles, and SEC championships, in that order.
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Mr. Montana aka College Football’s Village Idiot has weighed in on the expansion:
https://theathletic.com/2645371/2021/06/10/mandel-college-football-americas-most-uniquely-quirky-high-stakes-game-might-now-be-like-every-other-sport/?source=user_shared_article
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And I promptly canceled my subscription. Didn’t bother to read it.
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I’m the most excited about the impending nationwide re-arranging of conference structures, schedules, and champion selection methods so every single conference can angle to have the maximum number of teams in the playoff. That’s going to be my favorite part.
The further disappearance of decent non-conference matchups to avoid losses will just be gravy.
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I think I’m the lone person who likes the changes on this board.
#1 it’s good for UGA, as we don’t get penalized for being a top 4 team that just happens to have to play the best team in the country in early December instead of having a bye week (ND) or what is effectively a bye week for ACC/Big 10 etc. as has been noted, we’d have had many more shots to prove it on the field had this system existed earlier.
Hopefully it converts some crap bowl game that I have no interest in, to a playoff game that I do.
Has the possibility of increasing national interest into a sport that as of right now only interests about 25% of the population. I am looking forward to attending the UGA vs UCLA game in a few years, but I’d look forward to it a lot more if it was actually going to be remotely competitive and UCLA’s fans cared. Increasing fan interest makes the sport better, I would love to see the rest of America adopt at least some of the SEC’s fanfare.
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It’ll certainly give UGA fewer chances to get shut out even through they’re clearly one of the best teams.
But I don’t think the kind of national fandom you’re hoping for will meaningfully increase. Better ratings from more casual fans will increase, but I doubt it will result in more die hards.
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I don’t know that anyone who is down on this format doesn’t think it also benefits UGA. Its clear, at least to me, that we’re a major beneficiary of this format. In fact, it could be argued that only ND stands to gain more than we do with this change. Perhaps one of the kings of the short bus kids at Boise or UCF have as much to gain. Doesn’t make it a good thing. Pure self interest rarely is.
But it is hard to see too many scenarios where we get left out with the way Kirby recruits. It will be interesting to see how division winners who lose in the championship game fair tho.
I can only imagine the conniptions that will be had if they take a UF team over a UGA team who won the east, beat UF, but then lost in ATL.
But thats nothing that 32 can’t fix right?
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We’re definitely a beneficiary of this format as one of the programs deep enough in talent to run the gauntlet as a 5-8 seed to a national title. The Group of 5 gets a seat at the adult table, but I guarantee most of the games will end up more like the bombing of Hawaii than the Boise/OU or UCF/Auburn games.
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Exactly. My problem is that, even if we could have taken advantage of some missed opportunities in the past 20 years in this format, it’s still rare that we’ll have a team that can/should win it all. And the 9 out of 10 seasons in between (generously speaking) will usually be a lot less interesting.
And oh my god are we going to get our hopes up and crushed SO MUCH more often now. Holy shit get ready to take the 2007 team to a playoff only for Stafford to go down in round two, or for that random flat South Carolina style loss to come in round one. Just get ready cause it’s coming. It just to us, but don’t get ourselves under any illusions that if we actually had the 3 or four opportunities we deserved over the last couple decades that we would have actually closed the deal on all, if any.
Guarantee we’d have had at least one the last 20 years under this format, but the disappointment isn’t going to just end; we’ll benefit but many others will too, and you gotta play the games. If we could lose to South Carolina in 2007, we could lose a first round playoff game.
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Second paragraph…
“*It’ll benefit us, but don’t get ourselves under any illusions…”
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We’ve had chances to prove it on the field in Atlanta and haven’t gotten it done for whatever reason the last 3 times we have played in the building in downtown Atlanta – 2 of the times happened to be in de facto quarterfinal games in the SEC championship game and, of course, the national title game.
If you can present a scenario outside of 2007 where a team outside the top 4 had a legitimate claim to play for the national title, I’m all ears. For those of us who think this is a terrible solution, we see a growing post-season that makes the regular season less and less relevant.
I’m planning to go to the UCLA game in Pasadena. I couldn’t care less whether a single Bruin fan shows up. I hope we do a 2017 Notre Dame on the Rose Bowl.
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I give you UGA 2020.
We played Bama in Tuscaloosa and were the only team to lead them at the half. This is with Stetson.
Lost to UF because of defensive injuries and continued poor QB play.
I think last years team with JT was complete enough to get to a championship game and beat Bama 3-4/10 times. I base this on us having an elite defense and averaging significantly more YPP and points after JT took over.
Whether we would have done it or not, I don’t know, but I would have liked to see a healthy Daniel’s led team take on Bama last year
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Ignore the regular season outcomes. We didn’t even win our division and we’re beaten soundly twice regardless of the circumstances.
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*were beaten – damn autocorrect
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Yeah I guess if you everything I just said, you’ve got a point
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Ignore
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My point is that we didn’t deserve a shot. At the end of the regular season, we didn’t deserve a second bite at the apple. My point is that 6 wild cards make the regular season practically meaningless. I get that we were potentially a different team with JT, but we weren’t one of the best teams for the full season.
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I can understand and respect that.
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I think the 2014 team (at full speed) would have smoked the 2020 team. But yeah last years team COULD have done it. But it wouldn’t have been likely. Cincy was legit, but I’d feel better about that statement if we’d have handled them. Talent advantage was too great to only win by a field goal, but expect to then beat two playoff teams.
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And I totally disagree on your UCLA take. I really enjoyed meeting and interacting with ND fans.
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I get that, but do you want to outnumbered 10 to 1 or to turn the Rose Bowl into a neutral field? I didn’t go to South Bend, but the ND folks I interacted with Athens were good folks.
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Also, I don’t have any issue with ESPN or CFB making tons of money. This seems to be a reason everyone is piling on the changes, “it’s all about the money”
If the product is better and ESPN makes more money, I’m perfectly ok with this. I don’t see how the profitability of the sport affects my fandom, unless it does…
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A stopped clock is right twice a day. Barrett Sallee on the expansion of the playoff:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/sadly-proposed-college-football-playoff-expansion-puts-the-emphasis-on-access-over-excellence/?fbclid=IwAR3HgTligtpR31A_Y5iGtsyEIsKEnXzTgPkWwV6A_FPLD3lJ5kqXxBNq5pQ
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