Playoffs? Don't talk about playoffs. Are you kidding me? Playoffs? -- Jim Mora (Nov. 25, 2001)

For this post, I think I'll write about a topic that seems to be very much in vogue. The topic is a playoff system for division one-a college football. I know that it is no longer officially called division one-a by the NCAA, but since I don't care, I don't think it matters. I feel it's a rather stupid idea to change the name from one-a to division one subdivision bowl, or whatever it is that they want us to call it now. Quick side note to ponder; the NCAA has a history of doing stupid things, which is interesting considering that it's composed of many of our institutions of higher learning. Back to the name change, the only reasons I can think of for changing the name is to: a) make the former division one-aa folks feel better about themselves b) try to make the former division one-a folks feel worse about themselves in a hopes that they'll decide to adopt a playoff system c) because the academic community loves overbearing bureaucracy and someone felt they needed to do something to justify their position or d) all of the above. None of these seems like a good idea to me, but then I wouldn't have changed the name.

Also, this whole name change has had the unfortunate side effect of overburdening the commentators of college football games who are now at a loss as to how to refer to the two divisions in an efficient and simple manner. I think I can help with this. Simply refer to them has division one-b and division one-c, or if you're really pressed for time call them one-b and one-c. The "b" of course stands for bowl, and the "c" for championship. I think this little bit of shorthand should make commentators lives easier everywhere. This solution also has the added benefit of putting one-a back in front of one-aa, as b comes before c. Funny how life is full of these little pleasures. Take that NCAA bureaucracy.

I seem to have gotten a little off topic, as I intended to discuss a playoff system for division one-a. The first thing that needs to be addressed is why we don't have a playoff system. Once upon a time, I remember hearing an interview on the radio that brought up the only sane reason I've ever heard for not having a playoff. The guest, who's name I can't remember, made the point that the lack of a playoff has to do with how the money would be divided. With the bowl system, the money that's earned goes to the conferences, who divide it among their member schools. In other words, if your team goes to a bowl, the money they earn goes to the school. If it's affiliated with a conference, it shares that money with the other members of its conference. This is because the NCAA doesn't run the bowls. They're independent organizations that invite schools to play with the authorization of the NCAA. However, if we had a playoff and a championship, that would be run by the NCAA, and all of the money would be split, not by the conference, but by all of the member schools of the NCAA. That includes not only the division one schools, but the division two and three schools as well. So instead of splitting the money into eight to twelve equal shares, it would be split into several hundred equal shares. That's why even though the NCAA men's basketball tournament earns more money than the BCS, the individual schools in the major conferences earn less. In essence the BCS is a cash cow for the teams that can get in. It's a medium size pie with a few large slices versus a huge pie with lots of little slices.

Therefore, the first thing that needs to happen is to guarantee the payouts to the schools that are making money now, because they're not going to agree to a new system if it means they lose money. They've invested a lot of money to promote and run their teams and they deserve a return on their investment. People generally don't think about how expensive it is to run a football program, especially a good one (sadly many of these people work in the athletics department at Duke). They also don't realize that many athletic departments at the more competitive schools use the funds they raise from football to support their non-revenue generating sports, many of which are mandated by title nine. These schools depend on this football revenue and will fight to the end to keep it. Using the numbers that are available, we can arrive at a BCS school receiving somewhere between one and a half to two and a half million dollars every year for just being affiliated with the conference. This is based on the idea that a BCS bowl pays out seventeen million dollars to the participating teams. Granted a conference could earn more if they get two teams in, but we'll keep it simple for now. There might also be some additional revenues that I'm not aware of, but I can't take these into consideration because I don't know about them. So, in the spirit of keeping things simple, lets just say a BCS school is guaranteed two and a half million dollars a year. I think that's a good starting place for my plan. Of course BCS schools aren't the only ones making money from the BCS, you also have the bowls themselves which are turning a profit, and they'll need to be addressed as well. The problem I've discovered is that a lot of revenue information concerning the BCS is hidden, so it will be difficult to completely solve the problem. However, I hope to lay out a framework that could later be adjusted for those hidden items.

The framework begins with a sixteen team playoff. Currently in division one-a (or one-b if you like) there are eleven conferences and a handful of independents. I feel if you're going to have a true championship it must give every team a chance. Therefore the tournament will be to crown the champion of champions. Each conference will send its champion to the tournament. That will comprise eleven of the sixteen slots. Conferences will be allowed to decide for themselves how to chose their champion, but they need to have the process documented ahead of time. The remaining five slots will be the five highest ranked teams not already in the tournament, this will allow independent teams a chance to get in as well as to reward strong conferences. The teams will be seeded by their rankings in the polls, one to sixteen in a bracket system like that used in the basketball tournament. The tournament would have four rounds. The first two rounds would be home games hosted by the higher seed in the match up. The other games would be played at the four current BCS bowl sites on a rotating basis. The semifinals will be played at two of the bowl sites, and the final and a runners up game would be played at the other two.

Now lets address some of the problems. The first is when will the event be played. I propose that the tournaments first two rounds be played in the middle of December, perhaps the second and third Saturdays. The semifinal games could be played on January first, for sentimental reasons and to give the teams a break for Christmas and to regroup and travel. The title game and the runners up game could then be played a week after the semifinals or later. I think you need to give the teams at least a week, but no more than two.

The next problem is money. I already stated that the BCS schools are making at least two and a half million dollars on the current deal. If we implement a playoff system, they would have to make at least that much. The first step is to limit payouts to only the division one-a schools. If the NCAA has a problem with this, than the school presidents should consider starting a new organization that serves it's members and not the other way around. So let's say that by some miracle the money and regulation of the tournament rests with the conference presidents and not the NCAA, we still have a hundred and nineteen schools that need a guaranteed payout. If we do some quick math, we see that in order to keep the payouts around two and a half million dollars we'll need to earn around three hundred million dollars. We'd also need to raise the additional money that the other non-school organizations, such as the bowls, are making right now. I think a good portion of this can be raised by the fact that we'll be playing sixteen games instead of five. Triple the games, triple the profits, at least that's the hope. A key part of revenue is the television money. With a tournament we'd have triple the ad space, triple the cost to sponsors, etc. Unfortunately, we don't know how much money FOX is paying for the rights to broadcast the games right now, but I'd imagine they would pay a lot more for a tournament with a build up and better story lines. Also, the various rounds could be sold separately or all together, whichever way would earn more money. The hope is that the additional revenue would far exceed the additional operating and travel expenses to the point that everyone could get a slice of this giant money pie that's equal to the one that's being dished out right now.

Television money, however, is not the only money. A key point I'd like to bring up is what happens to the money earned in the first two rounds. I think the host teams should be allowed to keep the gate money. They should have to give a certain percentage of their tickets to their opponent who would then be allowed to keep any money earned from the sale of those tickets. This is a reward to the schools that actually get into the games. The home teams can generate extra revenue from the sale of tickets, concessions, parking, etc.; and the visiting teams will get a little extra from the sale of their share of the tickets. This could work as an incentive for teams to get one of the top four bids. The final two rounds, played at the bowl sites, would work just like they do now. They could even continue to be administrated the same way.

A problem that is often brought up is what about the fans. How can they be expected to do all that travelling? I find it interesting that this doesn't seem to be a problem when dealing with basketball, but seems to be a huge problem when it comes to football. However, it's worth discussing. The problem is somewhat solved in the first two rounds by the fact that they're played in home stadiums. Most of the fans are already there and excited to be a part of a tournament. The other two rounds are where you might have some problems. Part of this could be solved by the spacing of the games, allowing people enough time to make their arrangements, the rest of it can probably be solved by observing what fans of basketball final four teams do. I don't think we should worry to much about this. I find that people are fairly intelligent and creative. Enough of them will find a way to make it to the games and fill the stadiums. Somehow I think empty seats will be the least of out problems.

The final thing I'd like to discuss is what to do with all the other bowl games. I say continue to play them as is. I know a lot of people think they're a waste of time, but I for one really enjoy the bowl games. I think they have a lot to offer to the teams that get in, and it sure beats watching a lot of other stuff on television. I think the bowls offer us an opportunity to gauge the relative strength of the various conferences. I would like to see a better system for matching teams up. Often teams are poorly matched, resulting in uncompetitive and therefore boring games. Of course this is a topic for another time.