Jim Delany shocked the college football world this past week when he announced that he now supported a limited playoff. There are multiple reasons for this but the primary driver is that the bowl system is failing and television ratings are dropping. Money drives everything in college football and while many love the rewards of the bowl system, they are leaving too much money on the table by ignoring a true playoff system.
In the past few years, the smaller conferences have made quite a stink about being excluded from the BCS to the point that Congress has started to get involved. The thing is there are about a dozen schools that drive college football in terms of television ratings. There was a good article from the NY Times last fall that gives a decent idea of who drives television ratings. Suffice it to say that this includes most of the schools in the Big Ten/SEC and about 2-3 schools from the Big 12, ACC, and Pac 10. For a long time these schools have patiently sat by and allowed other conference schools benefit from their fans. A good example is in the Big Ten where Indiana hasn't had a good football team in a quarter century but the league shares revenue the same to them as they do to Ohio State/Penn State/Michigan. The relationship is symbiotic as these schools need 10 win season to keep their fanbase happy so sharing television and bowl revenue (about $25 million annually) is worth it. This doesn't totally make up the difference as college football is possibly the one remaining sport that is driven more by ticket sales that television. For example, Ohio State sells over 100,000 tickets to every home game at around $75 each. Add to that booster clubs and merchandising and you are easily looking at an additional $50 million in revenues which is why the Indiana's of the world cannot compete with the traditional powers.
This system has worked well for over a century but now the smaller conferences want a bigger piece of the pie. These schools (WAC/MountWest/MAC/C-USA/Sunbelt) are needed by the football powerhouses to farm wins just like the Big Ten needs Indiana. This is important because if the powerhouses only played one another then 10 win seasons would be a thing of the past for many which would frustrate boosters and eventually lessen income.
So the smaller schools have value but how much of the overall pie should they get?
For a long time these schools got their appearance fees and that was it. Appearance fees are an important part of any small schools athletic budget. For instance, Ohio State pays between $600,000 and $1,000,000 per game to visiting teams. No doubt the Buckeyes make many times that but when you consider that the total operating budget for some of these schools is $15 million you can see why small schools covet these games and most have 3-4 every year. In that way big school college football funds the athletic department not only of their school/conference but the athletic departments for every sport in Division 1.
A few years ago pressure from the small conferences pressed the bigger conferences to share the BCS revenues. This amounted to about $20 million for the 65 small schools or about $300,000 each. In a way it was a pay off to shut them up and I'm sure once the agreement was finalized the big schools thought they'd heard the last of the issue. After all they'd shared revenue and allowed these schools a shot at the bowls. What they didn't count on is the success that Utah, Boise State and TCU would over the next few years which would put additional pressure on them to include these schools in the national championship game and increase the demands for additional compensation. The one constant in college football is that any change is slow and these teams weren't willing to wait to get a bigger piece of the pie and now all three have moved to larger leagues. These schools were only 1 part of a conference realignment that was focused on maximizing revenue. How BCS monies were shared were the driving force behind most of the changes and the college presidents/athletic directors realized they had to do something to stablize college football.
The first idea that was floated in December was that starting with the next BCS agreement that there would no longer be automatic bids given to any school. Everything was reverting to the way it was before the BCS so the bowls could pick who they wanted to attend. In essence that means in 2015, an undefeated small school will lose out to a 9-3 big school every time which is how the big schools want it. They can hide behind the fact that the bowls are private entities and can invite anyone they want. The BCS would only match #1 vs #2 which again would most likely exclude small schools because under the current system, it is virtually impossible for a small school to finish that high.
That seemed to be the plan that would happen until Delany's announcement last week. Most other conferences have long wanted a "Plus 1" game so that the bowls would be a semi final followed by a championship game. Delany's proposal would add two games in December at the home field of the higher ranked team followed by a "college superbowl" at a neutral site. This has started a lot of conversation around college football as this system would exclude the bowls from the best 4 teams each season and turn tradition on its head.
The one thing is sure out of all this is the new BCS agreement will almost certainly include a playoff of at least 4 teams and that is a good thing. My next article will discuss the implications of Delany's proposal, the true impact on the various leagues, and most especially how it affects money.
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