There are times when I think college football is nothing but an elaborate experiment to see how effectively it can self-sabotage. I mean, check out how they’re considering scheduling the post-expansion CFP ($$):
First round: It will be the third weekend in December, ideally with three games on Saturday, but that will depend on whether the CFP is willing to go head-to-head with the NFL’s Saturday games. Mind you, those games have recently been on NFL Network, not CBS/FOX, so is it really that big a conflict? Still, I could see one on Thursday night (which itself is an NFL conflict), one on Friday night and two on Saturday.
Quarterfinals: The goal is a New Year’s Day triple-header and a primetime Jan. 2 game, but the Rose Bowl’s contract will complicate that in 2024 and 2025. Also, don’t laugh, but even the Citrus and Outback bowls’ contracts lock them into their early New Year’s windows, so the parties involved would have to reach some compromises. If not, you may have a dreaded Dec. 31 game.
Semifinals: There’s currently no good answer here. The two games will have to be squeezed around NFL wild-card weekend, which now runs from Saturday to Monday. You could either play prime-time games Thursday and Friday or one Friday night and the other Saturday at noon or 12:30 ET. (The first NFL game is at 4:30.) However, in the Week 0 scenario, these games could move up to Jan. 1 which seems infinitely more desirable.
Championship game: The third Monday in January, after the NFL divisional rounds. Good news for all the Monday night complainers: They’ve moved this year’s game up a half hour to 7:30 p.m. ET, and I assume that will continue.
Thursday night college football! It’s not just for MACtion anymore!
I’d like to say these fuckers deserve the consequences of their bad planning, but who am I kidding here? As long as Mickey keeps sending the checks, they’re not going to care how many fans they alienate.
Get The Picture 
Most fans of the teams involved will watch any day and time the game is played. Overseas service members are evidence of that. Degenerate gamblers will also tune in. Casual fans will be left with their ass hanging in the breeze. Mickey doesn’t give a shit as long as the money keeps rolling in.
Until it doesn’t.
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Exactly, RR. At some point in time, the breaking point will be reached with the money.
On a possibly related note, why do ADs continue to sign coaches to contracts with huge buy-outs? Is Sexton really that amazing?
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“At some point, the breaking point will be reached…” me, talking about California areal Estate… in 2004.
Still waiting.
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You know what I meant. Stupid iPad.
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You’re tossing out the truth there, RR…the fanatics are going to get up at 3 a.m. to watch if necessary…the casual observers will watch if it’s convenient. For the ardent fans we sorta feel like we’ve been chained to the radiator or worse Beulah Ballbricker’s bed post.
If it get’s too bad…some of us will have to coyote ugly our asses to freedom…#glorydays
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LMFAO!
Narcotics have a warning about the adverse effects of mixing with alcohol. There ain’t no label or warning about the deleterious effects of mixing alcohol and testosterone. I try not to be a busybody uncle. But I do give my nephews three words of advice.
Condoms, condoms, condoms.
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I’m with you RR. I will watch college ball over any other programming. CFP would win over the Super Bowl for me, but time is on our side, at least on that one.
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The powers that be who created a 12 team playoff format did not take the time and effort to plan how it would be scheduled. So many pundits praise Sankey as if he is the smartest and most analytical guy his the history of the world and Sankey believes every word of it.
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That man eats his own self-generated rat poison, along with the medias. No wonder sick spews from his mouth at every opportunity.
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I fear that the consequences of such a nakedly greed-driven gambit will be borne most by the fans and players. If they’re truly felt by the suits – and their conference and university accomplices – will the regional models be restored? Will disaffected fans come back with their fervor and $? Hard to see that happening.
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You can look at NASCAR as a potential way back…they just announced that the all-star race will be at North Wilkesboro, a track that was doomed by NASCAR’s aggressive national expansion in the early 2000s. Darlington is back on Labor Day weekend. Atlanta got a second race back.
The stands have gotten a lot fuller in NASCAR’s traditional region as they’ve started to lean back in. That said, it probably also has a lot to do with the housing market being strong the last few years as all of that construction industry money trickles back into the stands. It also took a number of years of horrifically empty stands followed by significantly dropped ticket prices to get people back inside. Even at places like Bristol that used to have a miles-long waiting list, it’s still not fully recovered.
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Good post, fish. Learn from the mistakes of others, if possible.
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A smart man learns from his mistakes.
A genius learns from others mistakes.
There are no geniuses running the CFP.
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I’ve been saying since this whole thing started, the logistics of expansion are more difficult than finding a format. While not an expansion supporter, the original 12-team proposal was pretty darn good at supporting all of the competing factions of the sport. The problem is the execution of the plan.
1) Do first round losers lose the ability to participate in a 2nd tier bowl game? If not, you have to move bowl selection back to after the first round. If so, those games lose access to what would likely be 4 good draws for TV.
2) All of this goes up against late season NFL Saturdays. I personally don’t care about that. I couldn’t find NFL Network on my TV and I don’t watch on the networks. I also assume I’m the exception especially with fantasy playoffs occurring during that time.
3) The semifinals seem to be in an awful spot. Your 2 marquee games have to be played around wild card weekend. That means no great TV windows.
4) The championship game is so late in January. The sport was meant to be done in a semester.
It’s going to be a mess.
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Remember those asinine Dr. Pepper commercials featuring the soft drink vendor who claimed to have invented the CFP and he showed his piece of paper with a 4 team bracket to prove it? The 12 team rollout reminds me of that.
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I guess my perspective on the 12-team playoff proposal was more about the seeding method given the competing interests among the conferences and ND. It was the only model that could give the Power 5 champions likely automatic bids (plus a Go5 champion) while allowing Notre Dame to stay independent and allowing for many of the wild cards to be deserving.
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I wasn’t comparing you to Larry the inventor of the CFP.
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No, I understand. Sorry if that’s the way it came across.
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“It’s going to be a mess.”
And that’s without even mentioning how hard it is going to be to actually find your way into the stadiums where those games are played from the quarterfinals on.
“Congrats, you just won a home game! Now you’ve got 9 days to figure out how to get from Eugene, Oregon to Orlando, Florida. But don’t spend too much getting there…you might need to be in New Orleans the following week. And don’t forget to plan for your trip to Dallas for the natty a week and a half later.”
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Yep. I wasn’t even including the challenge to the rank and file fan of the school.
Let’s just use our school as the example with the Dawgs as a #5 seed. Play at home with a ticket that’s likely $100+ (no way, these are regular face value). That’s probably a $600+ day trip to Athens for the typical fan from Atlanta. You then have to play the #4 seed USC in Pasadena. That’s potentially a $6k trip for a family of 4. Then a week later you are in Miami for a semifinal against #1 Alabama. You decide to drive rather than fly, so it’s another $3k of travel. Finally, you are back in LA at SoFi for the championship game with close to $10k for the family.
All total you have probably just spent $20k over a month period to be a part of a championship run. Needless to say, there aren’t many people who can do that.
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We’ve got last year as an example. LOTS of people skipped the Orange Bowl, despite it being (albeit very long) a driveable destination, and much easier to get to than it was for most Michigan fans. I figured it was just malaise on the part of fans after getting knocked off by Alabama yet again, but when we got to Indy I realized a whole lot of people just skipped the Orange Bowl and planned on going to the Natty instead.
Hopefully we keep winning and go to the Peach this year if we’re in the playoff. Because I’ve looked at what it’s going to take to get to Phoenix for the Fiesta and it’s not pretty. There likely won’t be a lot of Georgia fans at that game, especially with a game in LA a week later. About the only way to make that whole deal remotely feasible is if you’ve got the vacation (and no kids in school) and can just stay out west the whole time, flying to Phoenix on 12/30 or 12/31 and flying back from Southern California on 1/10.
Add an extra round of travel to a neutral site destination (with virtually no time for planning) and we’re going acting surprised when we see empty seats in one of these new games that is supposedly intended to put more teams in more important matchups. And the sight of empty seats in a quarterfinal/semifinal game is going to have a chilling effect on the perceived importance of those games, which will work against what the TV folks are trying to do. Better be careful about when and where you allow those overhead blimp shots…
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I think what the powers that be are banking on is that fans will pick the 1 (or 2) of the games that fit the budget and watch on TV for the other games.
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They will backfill enough with local corporate tickets and it can be just a casual sanitized orgy, just like Mickey likes it.
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What all this really means is that bowl games are going to be on the outside looking in when the new contract gets set up. The quarterfinals will go to campus, and the semifinals will either be on campus or bid out just like the championship game is to neutral sites.
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The TV pundits want to analogize an expanded playoff to March Madness. Brackets!! Cinderellas!! UPSETS!!!!!!
Unless it is Carolina or Duke playing in Charlotte the round of 64 games never have full crowds.
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That why this whole thing up to the championship game is going to campus. The NY6 bowl games don’t know they are about to be jettisoned by the sport.
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These extra early-round playoff games seem like additional opportunities for season-ending injuries
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I really wanna care
I wanna feel something
Let me dig a little deeper
No, man, sorry
Just nothing, no
You’ve really done it this time, ha-ha
My give a damn’s busted…..
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The obvious counter-point being that without them, the season is over anyway for those teams.
And also, teams 1-4 are unaffected in the first week. So, you’re adding one game to the teams who would have an actual shot prior to the expansion. Does add some risk… but one game of risk is not enough to slow this train.
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Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s
Friday Night Lights for HS football
Saturday is all about college football (Larry on the radio)
Sunday, come home from church and watch the Falcons get hammered while dad snoozed in the recliner.
Another tradition that has gone on the scrap heap of history
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Damn right, Texas. My life back then too….. except now I’m the dad.
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A couple of other thoughts:
Piss on Notre Dame. Why are they given the royal treatment when they’ve been a middle to upper level ACC for the past 20 years?
Play the National Championship Game on Saturday at a reasonable hour – NFL be damned.
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Both answers are the same … TV
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Ratings more specifically.
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Bill Hancock is Emmert stupid
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I’m going to take perverse pleasure in seeing 20k empty seats at the early round games.
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Maybe stadium revenue will be so low none of them will host unless the Athletic Associations pony up the requisite box office shortfall. If it starts to cost $$, maybe it won’t be as attractive anymore.
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Nothing says tradition like Thursday night tailgating on campus during the holidays and winter weather. I predict the 600 level will be covered in new logo tarps. Ticket revenues will be neutral because of the increased prices for available seats and rise in Hartmann required contributions.
It’s like playing baseball until early November (at night) or NBA and NHL finals in July…oh wait.
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What about the players. Some lucky guys will get to play 18 games a year. Trust me, 11 games was a grind. I can’t even comprehend 18 games. Speaking about the holidays, to hell with sitting around the table for 1 damn day with your family. They get that NIL money so screw them. Practice 12 months a year, live full pads.
No problem, as long as the TV money holds, just screw the players. What about the coaches? To hell with them and their families. They can recruit at night. They should have known better than coach football. I don’t care how much they are paid, a man can only take so much.
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I’m having a hard time getting to 18 games..somebody splain it to me.
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Should 17 games if a team played in their conference championship, didn’t get a bye, and went all the way to the championship game.
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Very sorry. 17 games not 18. That is still a lot of chances to get injured, or just worn out. Also, to hell with school. Should not have to go to classes anyway
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Why shouldn’t they have to go to classes even if it’s online? That’s one of the bridges that if the sport ever goes there, I’m out.
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