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Great piece from USA Today on Big 10 and Fox pulling strings for 24 team CFP

18IsTheMan

18IsTheMan

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Basically, Fox woefully underbid for the 12-team CFP. They are pushing the 24-team CFP with the Big 10 taking the lead to try getting back in the game.

Interestingly, I didn't realize they had changed from having 4 AQs from the Big 10 and SEC to having 23 at-large bids (1 additional for the sacrificial lamb from G6). So they basically bribed the ACC into joining them by giving them the possibility of greater representation with the at-large bid model.

I mentioned yesterday about the shifting power dynamic between the Big 10 and SEC, but it also goes for ESPN and Fox. I've long felt that ESPN pulled all the strings for college football. They do NOT want a 24-team CFP (for their own selfish reasons). So it's set up as a battle royale between ESPN/SEC and everyone else. One thing in ESPN/SEC's favor: nobody really wants the 24-team CFP. I haven't any positive reporting on it. Fans, surprisingly, don't want it for the most part. The article lays out what some of the first round games would have been last year: UNLV/Boise State and Syracuse/Arizona State. You can slap the CFP logo on those games all you want. Nobody wants to watch UNLV/Boise State.
 
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Piscis

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18IsTheMan said:
Basically, Fox woefully underbid for the 12-team CFP. They are pushing the 24-team CFP with the Big 10 taking the lead to try getting back in the game.

Interestingly, I didn't realize they had changed from having 4 AQs from the Big 10 and SEC to having 23 at-large bids (1 additional for the sacrificial lamb from G6). So they basically bribed the ACC into joining them by giving them the possibility of greater representation with the at-large bid model.

I mentioned yesterday about the shifting power dynamic between the Big 10 and SEC, but it also goes for ESPN and Fox. I've long felt that ESPN pulled all the strings for college football. They do NOT want a 24-team CFP (for their own selfish reasons). So it's set up as a battle royale between ESPN/SEC and everyone else. One thing in ESPN/SEC's favor: nobody really wants the 24-team CFP. I haven't any positive reporting on it. Fans, surprisingly, don't want it for the most part. The article lays out what some of the first round games would have been last year: UNLV/Boise State and Syracuse/Arizona State. You can slap the CFP logo on those games all you want. Nobody wants to watch UNLV/Boise State.
Click to expand...
23 at large bids is basically an end of season tournament among the teams in the top 25.

This is peak "everybody gets a trophy".
 
18IsTheMan

18IsTheMan

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Piscis said:
23 at large bids is basically an end of season tournament among the teams in the top 25.

This is peak "everybody gets a trophy".
Click to expand...
The sad thing is, that’s what some people want. The article made it clear there are people who simply want to hear their team made the CFP, even if they are team # 24. “Just keep expanding it until it’s large enough for us to actually make it so we can say we were a playoff team.”
 
atl-cock

atl-cock

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18IsTheMan said:
Basically, Fox woefully underbid for the 12-team CFP. They are pushing the 24-team CFP with the Big 10 taking the lead to try getting back in the game.

Interestingly, I didn't realize they had changed from having 4 AQs from the Big 10 and SEC to having 23 at-large bids (1 additional for the sacrificial lamb from G6). So they basically bribed the ACC into joining them by giving them the possibility of greater representation with the at-large bid model.

I mentioned yesterday about the shifting power dynamic between the Big 10 and SEC, but it also goes for ESPN and Fox. I've long felt that ESPN pulled all the strings for college football. They do NOT want a 24-team CFP (for their own selfish reasons). So it's set up as a battle royale between ESPN/SEC and everyone else. One thing in ESPN/SEC's favor: nobody really wants the 24-team CFP. I haven't any positive reporting on it. Fans, surprisingly, don't want it for the most part. The article lays out what some of the first round games would have been last year: UNLV/Boise State and Syracuse/Arizona State. You can slap the CFP logo on those games all you want. Nobody wants to watch UNLV/Boise State.
Click to expand...
Would you watch those as bowl games?
 
18IsTheMan

18IsTheMan

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atl-cock said:
Would you watch those as bowl games?
Click to expand...
no

I can't imagine a scenario where I'd watch a UNLV/Boise State game. Even if they somehow made it to the title game, I can't imagine myself watching it. Maybe in the old days when there was the Thursday night game on ESPN, it's a game I would have put on for background noise while I was doing other things.
 
PrestonyteParrot

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It took some time, but college sports has now become a money game instead of a school loyalty game.
Except for the case mentioned above where there are those who just want to hear their school name and CFP mentioned in the same sentence.
 
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18IsTheMan

18IsTheMan

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PrestonyteParrot said:
It took some time, but college sports has now become a money game instead of a school loyalty game.
Except for the case mentioned above where there are those who just want to hear their school name and CFP mentioned in the same sentence.
Click to expand...
I heard a commentator yesterday who noted the one thing that really set college football apart from every other sport is that the regular season mattered. Unlike all pro sports or most other college sports, in college football, a team HAD to have a great regular season to even think about a shot at the national title. In just about any other sport, you can have a so-so season and still make it to some sort of postseason with at least a shot to win the title. Sadly, that's where college football is heading. Even if the 24-team CFP doesn't come to fruition, the 16-team will, which means you will see a team or teams with 3 regular season losses get in. I think even 12 teams is too many b/c you're getting teams in who very clearly have no shot whatsoever at the title. Never in the history of college football has anyone ever thought that a team ranked outside the top 5 or so at the end of the regular season was title worthy. There is quite a bit of drop off from #1 to #10.

Everything else aside about how absurd that is. It just means the college football regular season doesn't mean anything any longer. It was unique and special among all the other sports. For some reason people decided more teams needed a shot. That requires ignoring the irrefutable logic that EVERY team has a shot. EVERY team gets 12 games to prove they deserve a shot. Then you have the argument that it's good for the sport to keep more fan bases engaged. Well, let's take that "logic" to the max and just have a 100+ team CFP at the end of the season.

There was no sound rationale for expanding to a 12-team CFP. It was transparently a purely financial decision, and there's no argument to made otherwise. No one thinks, or ever has thought, there are 12 title worthy teams at the end of the year. Further expansion is only compounding the stupidity.

One could hope further expansion will adversely impact ratings for regular season games. When teams can absorb 3-4 losses and still make the CFP, there is no one game that is must watch in the regular season.
 
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PrestonyteParrot

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18IsTheMan said:
I heard a commentator yesterday who noted the one thing that really set college football apart from every other sport is that the regular season mattered. Unlike all pro sports or most other college sports, in college football, a team HAD to have a great regular season to even think about a shot at the national title. In just about any other sport, you can have a so-so season and still make it to some sort of postseason with at least a shot to win the title. Sadly, that's where college football is heading. Even if the 24-team CFP doesn't come to fruition, the 16-team will, which means you will see a team or teams with 3 regular season losses get in. I think even 12 teams is too many b/c you're getting teams in who very clearly have no shot whatsoever at the title. Never in the history of college football has anyone ever thought that a team ranked outside the top 5 or so at the end of the regular season was title worthy. There is quite a bit of drop off from #1 to #10.

Everything else aside about how absurd that is. It just means the college football regular season doesn't mean anything any longer. It was unique and special among all the other sports. For some reason people decided more teams needed a shot. That requires ignoring the irrefutable logic that EVERY team has a shot. EVERY team gets 12 games to prove they deserve a shot. Then you have the argument that it's good for the sport to keep more fan bases engaged. Well, let's take that "logic" to the max and just have a 100+ team CFP at the end of the season.

There was no sound rationale for expanding to a 12-team CFP. It was transparently a purely financial decision, and there's no argument to made otherwise. No one thinks, or ever has thought, there are 12 title worthy teams at the end of the year. Further expansion is only compounding the stupidity.

One could hope further expansion will adversely impact ratings for regular season games. When teams can absorb 3-4 losses and still make the CFP, there is no one game that is must watch in the regular season.
Click to expand...
Correct, The regular season is a 100+ team playoff to get to the CFP
 
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Harvard Gamecock

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I strongly suspect many on here would have a change of heart the minute Carolina is hovering around the #23 ranking. Then all of a sudden, a intense interest on the #23 or #24 slot of who gets in, and where they play the game.

Just for the record. No, I am not interested in expanding to a 24 team playoff. However, I have resigned myself to the prospect of a 16 or 24 team playoff as inevitable.
 
PrestonyteParrot

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Harvard Gamecock said:
I strongly suspect many on here would have a change of heart the minute Carolina is hovering around the #23 ranking. Then all of a sudden, a intense interest on the #23 or #24 slot of who gets in, and where they play the game.

Just for the record. No, I am not interested in expanding to a 24 team playoff. However, I have resigned myself to the prospect of a 16 or 24 team playoff as inevitable.
Click to expand...
Yes, money will dictate this inevitable outcome regardless of what is best for the sport.
 
Harvard Gamecock

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Mario Cristobal on the prospect of a 24 team playuoff.

However, Miami coach Mario Cristobal, in an appearance last week on ESPN's "This Is Football," said he wasn't in favor of a 24-team playoff and would rather finish the regular season earlier, have one bye week and then start playoff games.

"I'm not for the 24-team thing," Cristobal told ESPN's Kevin Clark. "That's a lot. Why play a regular season then? And I'm certainly not for automatic bids ... like, why? It's not a beauty pageant. It's not a beauty contest. It's competition. Go win. Go win on the field, and guys that deserve it, get in, and figure it out from there."
 
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