Could Mark Cuban be college football's savior?

I don't see the Big East, MAC, Sun Belt or CUSA champs in there so that's not going to work.

 

I think it should be the top 16 teams period.

Hell, this year three non BCS schools would have made the playoff. Is that not good enough for people who want the little Sun Belt and Mac to have a chance to lose by 60 at Auburn?

 

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The most glamourous BCS title game possible --- USC-Texas --- got fewer than 40 percent of the viewers that a Super Bowl gets.

And no other college matchup can even get one-third as many viewers.

 

I don't care if there's a playoff or not, but please stop this nonsense.

A quarterfinal playoff game may be played in Paqsadena, but it will not be the Rose Bowl. It will never be the Rose Bowl (or Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, etc.). The Rose Bowl is a final destination, a game unto itself.

And if you think the Rose Bowl Committee is going to give anyone the permission to use that name for an NCAA quarterfinal football game, or even help stage that gmae, you're nuts.

Under any playoff system, the teams come in on Thursdeay or Friday, and leave immediately after the game.

And the NCAA will never approve a playoff plan that doesn't include a representative of all 11 FBS conferences, and a far more equitable system of revenue distribution. And that's exactly what the BCS AQ schools are fighting; small-conference representation, and equal revenue sharing.

They don't want Boise State or Nevada taking money away from UConn and the Big East, to use 2010 as an example, although they are clearly superior teams and far more worthy of a BCS bowl than UConn.
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That doesn't mean anything.

If you have three weeks of games leading up to the championship game, the ratings will dwarf what the USC-Texas game got.

That's part of the problem with the bowls right now. Some of the teams are done playing in mid-November, the others in the first week in December and there there's at least a month of nothing until the bowl. If you're watching the three weeks building up to the title game, there will be more excitement surrounding the title game than there has been in recent years.

 

If that's what they have to do, that sucks, but so be it. Obviously, the revenue would have to be split evenly. It just seems stupid to get something as cool as the playoff and then ruin the first round by inviting the junior varsity.

 

"More excitement" may mean 5 million more viewers. It doesn't mean 60 million more.

 

Would the Chick-Fil-As and Outbacks be willing to pay for the naming rights to a random first-round playoff game? And while the NCAA is willing to allow bowls to sell their naming rights, would it even be permissible with playoffs? I don't recall the basketball tournaments or lower-level football tournaments having games with sponsorships attached?

Also, whatever cache the term "bowl" has these days would take a dive with a playoff system. It might as well stand for "NIT".

 

No, it's not good enough. If you're going to make the regular season relevant again, you have to do so for everyone. Troy, Tulsa and Louisiana-Lafayette all gave Oklahoma State fits during the regular season. If that's all they do in the first round against a top seed, mission accomplished.

If you take the top 16 teams, period, then there's no real difference between being a No. 1 seed and a No. 6 seed. Either way, you're likely getting a top-15 team. But if you invite champions from the MAC, Sun Belt, etc., there's a real advantage to fighting for one of those top seeds, aside from the obvious home field. Adding those teams would make the SEC, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac-12 championship games so much more important than they are now.

 

It might as well already stand for NIT. Not in the Title game.

 

And that would be great. Die-hards still watch the NIT, because it's live sports programming, and die-hards would still watch bowl games for the same reason. Given how much money athletic departments lose being college football outsources its most valuable product, a playoff -- and the additional $800 million to be divvied up -- would be welcome.

 

If the NCAA creates a playoff system, it would be so expensive to kick off that it wouldn't be financially worthwhile.

First, it would have to pay enormous sums to every bowl game it just put out of business either before, during and/or after the antitrust suit that would surely come from the bowls.

Second, it would have to get TV contracts well above what the BCS gets now because it would have to make up the money schools get through the bowl system, and more.

Third, it would have to get the big football schools in the first place to agree a system in which it gives up control of the postseason to the NCAA.

Fourth, even if the big schools broke away and decided to form its own playoff system, without the NCAA, points one, two and three still apply. Plus, it would have to deal with lawsuits from the smaller FBS conferences that are left out.

For these reason, I feel very confident in saying a playoff isn't going to happen in any of our lifetimes. The only thing that can trump all these factors is a network backing up the money truck to make these problems go away, but I can't see that happening for games that are probably not going to pull any better ratings than they already do. I can't even see Mark Cuban having enough money to take care of all these problems. A few BCS athletic directors may be excited on the phone, but I somehow doubt they're going to stick their necks out if few others are biting.