Excellent college football playoff column

From none other than Dan Wetzel. Best dream playoff scenario I've read yet, with great analysis and reasoning:

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=dw-playoff112707&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Segment of his piece:
"The strangest part of the BCS is that outside businesses – the people who own the bowl games – get a cut of the revenue. It would be unfathomable for a league such as the NFL or NBA to allow independent promoters to stage its playoffs.

"College football is leaving millions on the table by staging top games in far-off locales. Ohio State, for instance, earns an estimated $5 million-plus for each home game. And that is just direct revenue. Forbes estimates Buckeye football games generated $42 million for the Columbus area in 2005."

 

It's a nice column, fairly well-reasoned, and I'd like to see something like this happen, as would almost anybody else. I just don't think it's going to work without some form of the current bowl structure.

Three weekends of football in Columbus in December? I just can't imagine anything close to three straight packed houses, no matter what the stakes, and partly empty stadiums don't look good on TV. I think most fans, even the rabid ones, are happy with six home games and maybe a trip to a bowl game.

 

I'd go with a 12-team playoff with the four top seeds getting first round byes, use the BCS for at larges and non-BCS conference qualification, and play the four quarter-finals as the big BCS bowls, play the first round on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

 

Guys like Wetzel keep forgetting one thing ... quit comparing college football to the NFL. Apples and oranges.

 

Come on. Major college football is nearly on the same plane, lucratively speaking, as the NFL. It sure as hell is tons more popular than the NBA or NHL ever will be. And you can't hide the fact the major fball programs have the BCS in place to protect their coffers first and foremost. These bowl games no longer are a showcase like they were 30 years ago. It's a cut-throat, win-at-all-costs game. No need to sugarcoat it - it's damn near a professional sports entity anymore.

 

Why would schools like Northwestern, Indiana and Minnesota be in favor of a system where Ohio State or Michigan could get even more? Under the bowl system, conference teams split all that revenue. Wetzel's plan, unless he leaves a lot to be read betwee the lines, is a rich-get-richer scenario. It's exactly why it will never happen.

 

Why couldn't conferences split revenue in a system that is likely to bring in just as much if not more? I think a college football playoff system could generate more income on broadcast rights fees alone than all the bowl payouts combined.

 

Then the MAC, WAC, MWC, CUSA and SBC would never get a team. Boise State and Hawaii just barely make it and they're undefeated. WHat happens to a one-loss MWC team? NBo chance.

Only way these kinds of plans ever get approved is some form of revenue sharing that protects the non-BCS schools, as happens in NCAA hoops, and inclusion of all conference champs.

 

What I like about Wetzel's column is he exposes a truth none of the talk-out-of-their-ass playoff pundits ever bring up ... the NCAA does not sanction a single playoff system where every conference doesn't get an automatic bid. Therefore, you're going to see the MAC's and Sun Belt's of the world in any tournament scenario. I agree with Wetzel, give them a shot.

It has to be at least 16 teams. It will include the lower conferences, and eventually, all of Division I-A football will be better and deeper for it.

 

I will say this: If you play out Wetzel's bracket, the secound-round match-ups are amazing. The ratings would be huge. I disagree, though, that they should be home games, except for maybe the first round.

But Bubbler, I don't know how the scenario, set to divide the money among all 11 conferences, would be better than the current bowl system, where the power conferences have 7-10 teams playing and bringing huge paychecks back to the conference. Suddenly the MAC would get 1/11 of the revenue. Right now, the MAC has, what, two bowl affiliations at the low end of the pay-out food chain?

Of course, since there are more smaller conferences than power ones, it would seem a majority could be reached somehow.

 

I think Wetzel reads sportsjournalists.com . . . http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/1517878/ ;D 8)

 

Agreed. I've never liked hearing people calling for a plus-one, four-team or eight-team formats. Make it 16 teams, include all conferences and let the teams go at it.