I don’t know how I feel about this.
https://www.espn.com/college-footba...-season-reimagining-college-football-calendar
https://www.espn.com/college-footba...-season-reimagining-college-football-calendar
BOWL GAMES AT THE BEG
- Thread starter Loca5174
- Start date
I don’t know and the article really never says. But with how it looks this is just one of those doing it all to make the playoffs look better and the NY6 games. These are played with pretty much just the power 5 conferences with one lonely G5 team. So now pretty much it does away with postseason for everyone not in a P5 conference
During the later half of the 20th century, bowl games in college football became special to the athletes competing in college football and the fans that support it. That’s been in jeopardy since the BCS was born and now we have the NIL. Bowl Games are rewards for teams that have earned them and are great TV for the Holidays!
I am with Aresco 100% on getting rid of this p5 language especially now that it has truly become p2.
WE cant get rid of the P5 Language when the American is sporting the P6. That said, when the mainstream stops calling it the P5 then we all will.
Its a good demonstration of how out of fashion and out of the loop many of the ESPN reporters are these days. They essentially got together over coffee and put together a bunch of message board proposals then polled their known sources. Rather than actually do real reporting -- cultivating sources with influence and having them share details on and off the record.
The number of bowl games isn't going anywhere in the near future, contrary to popular belief. There are too many existing relationships and long term contracts for many of them to just buy out and wind down. And ESPN has too much sunken costs to pull the plug absent a bankruptcy style resolution. And as our esteem Hog colleague points out in the article, they are widely and unexplainably popular with casual fans and gamblers. We played ODU in the middle of the work day afternoon and drew better numbers than a Friday night game against a ranked opponent as few years before that.
Heck, I forget who it is, but one of the reasons the Bahamas Bowl even exists was it was created because one of their big name broadcasters wanted a paid working vacation at the end of the year. Ever wonder why ESPN has their best broadcasting team calling a CUSA #3 vs. MAC #4 bowl game or whatever? Its because they've got a multimillion dollar deal with on air talent they dont want to lose and he said Im doing that game every year until I retire or I wont sign.
That's just one example. At best, this is just negotiation noise to loosen up people on the subject of the playoff. Like everything else, you are either in one of two camps. The purpose of the system is to ascertain who the best team was that year OR the purpose of the system is to produce entertainment that the highest number of people watch. Contrary to your conditioning, the playoff does not ascertain who the best team was that year. But it is an extraordinary way of incentivizing the most people to watch. People look at the early season and mid season games played by the HBCU and others that generate significant viewership and fan affinity, like the Florida Classic or Army/Navy and say to themselves -- we can do that with West Virginia and South Carolina and give people a reason to watch since they wont be in the playoff at the end of the year. But it wont work. The football portion of the ACC was invented in part to generate revenue with this model with the idea that could all be shifted into basketball investment. Its a failure and we are seeing that play out in real time.
The number of bowl games isn't going anywhere in the near future, contrary to popular belief. There are too many existing relationships and long term contracts for many of them to just buy out and wind down. And ESPN has too much sunken costs to pull the plug absent a bankruptcy style resolution. And as our esteem Hog colleague points out in the article, they are widely and unexplainably popular with casual fans and gamblers. We played ODU in the middle of the work day afternoon and drew better numbers than a Friday night game against a ranked opponent as few years before that.
Heck, I forget who it is, but one of the reasons the Bahamas Bowl even exists was it was created because one of their big name broadcasters wanted a paid working vacation at the end of the year. Ever wonder why ESPN has their best broadcasting team calling a CUSA #3 vs. MAC #4 bowl game or whatever? Its because they've got a multimillion dollar deal with on air talent they dont want to lose and he said Im doing that game every year until I retire or I wont sign.
That's just one example. At best, this is just negotiation noise to loosen up people on the subject of the playoff. Like everything else, you are either in one of two camps. The purpose of the system is to ascertain who the best team was that year OR the purpose of the system is to produce entertainment that the highest number of people watch. Contrary to your conditioning, the playoff does not ascertain who the best team was that year. But it is an extraordinary way of incentivizing the most people to watch. People look at the early season and mid season games played by the HBCU and others that generate significant viewership and fan affinity, like the Florida Classic or Army/Navy and say to themselves -- we can do that with West Virginia and South Carolina and give people a reason to watch since they wont be in the playoff at the end of the year. But it wont work. The football portion of the ACC was invented in part to generate revenue with this model with the idea that could all be shifted into basketball investment. Its a failure and we are seeing that play out in real time.
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disagree 8 is plenty. you might get me to move to 12 but no more. This is football not basketball. Even the NFL wouldnt play that many games
All of the other NCAA divisions with a football championship have 16-32 teams.
And they lack both the revenue sharing of the NFL and the overhead of P2 programs that requires 7 to 9 home games a year to cover that and the political pressure that comes with entire local industries that rely solely on those gameday weekends. If you take away two or three non conference games to make way for the play off, then you bankrupt programs like Auburn and Florida State when they don’t go deeper into the playoff. There’s a self perpetuating Darwinism in some playoff formats for those with the money and the infrastructure to gain more at the expense of their recent business partners and competitors, even within conferences. And that makes a lot of people who care about womens sports, Olympic sports and academic budgets nervous, ie Senators and Congressman. The playoff debate isn’t about whether we should have one or how big it will be. It’s about who gets a structure that virtually guarantees they will survive. It’s Lord of the Flies.
D3 has a 32 team playoff. They also play a 9 game regular season schedule. If you are good enough to go from the first round to the championship game you would play 14 games
D2 has a 28 team playoff with a 10 game schedule. If you are good enough to go from the first round to the championship game you would play 15 games
An Argument can be made for the FCS tournament that is 24 teams and they play an 11 game schedule. If you are good enough to go from the first round (Generally those guys dont make the finals) to the championship game you would play 15 games
FBS plays a 12 game schedule. If you are good enough to go from the first round to the championship game you would play 14 games
If you made it 8 teams then they would play 15 games like the others. You want it more then we need to take out a regular season game.
if you only have 8 teams, teams will have to have 0 loses, maybe 1 but not 2; which makes tesms avoid playing other power teams during the regular season.
I can see them eventually agreeing on 16 but no more.
One of the problems with the proposed 12 team model was that it only gave teams ranked 5-8 an additional home game. Teams ranked 1-4 got a bye week and a mountain of lost revenue.
As Huffy discussed all of this comes down to money and those of us not in a P5 conference making it as “fair” as possible. In an 8 team playoff each of the P5 conference champs get in and a guaranteed spot for 1 G5 team. The other 2 spots filled as an at large. This ensures that the G5 is included. If you don’t schedule the P5 teams then you won’t get enough support behind you to climb the polls even if you don’t lose a game. If you can’t beat a P5 team during the season, what are your chances of beating them in the playoff. Expanding the playoff won’t help that only helps the P5 case to push us out.
Back in my day teams played a 10 game schedule and the argument against a playoff was the players couldn’t handle more than 11 games. Then they went to an 11 game schedule and the argument was they couldn’t handle more than 12 games. Then they went to 12 games and then the argument was they couldn’t handle more than 13 games. Now there’s a 4 team playoff and the argument is the playoff can’t expand because they can’t handle more than 14 games. See a trend here? Make the regular season 10 games, expand the playoff to 16 teams and use the bowls to run the playoff. No team plays over 14 games. This could be done if people actually cared about crowning a champ rather than maximizing revenue.
For many college towns, home football games are by far the biggest events of the year. There’s no way the regular season will be shortened to give up any of those dates.
If you do away with bowl games (unless part of the playoff) and have 12 game regular season games plus conference championship games, with each conference championship game winner getting a first round bye, you can have 24 teams with each conference champion getting a guaranteed spot. Of the 24 teams only 2-4 teams (depending on if a conference championship game loser runs the table) likely play more games than are played in the current system. The reality is certain conferences and schools don't want this approach because it “could” (no matter how unlikely) break the balance of power. The argument about taking players out of school and wear and tear on the body is bogus. Players want to make money with NIL, ability to transfer at will, etc… then they should expect the grind of a 13-17 game schedule. Stepping off my soapbox now.
Now that they're getting paid, I'm with ya. Can't be worried about how long the season is or how many games... It'll be in their best interest to get more exposure, sign more endorsements. 95% of college kids won't make it to the pros, so I think we should abandon the mindset that they're all 1 injury away from making to a pro contract. Any playoff scenario that gives Tulsa a realistic shot to make it in is fine with me. We're clearly in an irrelevant conference now, so we're permanently relegated to obscurity with no chance of moving to a stronger conference.
Don’t be so sure. There’s a very good chance what’s left of the Big 12 needs regional opponents with credibility for a new conference. Look at what the Sun Belt did with very specific intentions. They could have had more valuable properties outside their footprint and passed. Many observers believe they are playing the waiting game to take what the SEC casts off when the rot of the greed begins to gangrene inside the P2 and some partners are asked to go. A sixteen team playoff with a guaranteed spot for one or two of the winners of the two regional conferences is still a possibility in the long run. Remote. But this ain’t over.
without the large field in basketball, who would have every heard of Gonzaga, or even the anual parade of Cinderellas.
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