(03-04-2018 11:12 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 10:44 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 09:16 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 02:27 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-03-2018 01:31 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  There may not be a rational reason to give the Sunbelt Champ a slot, but there is an absolutely rational reason to give the top G5 champ a slot (whoever that may be). My feeling is the best solution is an 8-team playoff with all P5 champs being AQ, the top G5 champ being AQ, and two wild cards chosen by .the Selection Committee, Every team will have a path to the playoff when the season starts. That’s certainly part of a healthy sport.

First, the G5 teams won't have a path to the playoffs when the season starts. You just push the problem of subjective selection down to the G5 level. Who or how will it be determined who the top G5 is? Some kind of committee using RPI, SOS, BCS computers, etc. And the four conference champs that get left out will all gnash their teeths about the unsporting nature of it all.

Second, whether college football is 'unhealthy' depends on point of view. It isn't unhealthy from a P perspective, because the P have the cash and the access. It is from a G perspective, for the same reason.

So if G wants P to change things such that G will be better off in terms of access, money, exposure, etc. there has to be a good reason for P to do so. So far, nobody has shown that reason.

A cartel will never have a good reason to choose not to be a cartel.

You seem to have a strange notion of what a 'cartel' is. Bizarro, actually. Cartel usually implies restraint of trade. But there is nothing about the CFP that restrains trade for G5 members. G5 conferences like the Sun Belt are free to sign their own deals with bowls, TV networks, etc. and there isn't a damn thing the P5 can do about it. If FOX wants to give the Sun Belt $50m per school per year, zero the SEC can do about it. Nothing.

In fact, the only time a court has ever ruled that the college football system was characterized by restraint of trade was when the SCOTUS struck down the NCAA's "we're all one big league!" TV deal structure and freed up each conference to sign its own deal.

You seem to think that high-value conferences should just voluntarily give away some of their money and prestige to low-value conferences because ... why? The goodness of their hearts?

I guess if I start my own burger joint, rather than trying to put me out of business, McDonald's should start giving me money and promote me on their web site to help me grow my business?

You are a weird bird.

No cartel gives up their advantages out of the goodness of their heart.

Your post is all about competing businesses. But we are a single subdivision under shared governance.

What you continuously miss is that FBS is not and never was designed to be a "league" in that sense that the say the NFL is. It was solely designed to accommodate those schools that did not want to participate in NCAA sponsored football playoffs. That's it, that's all FBS means: We'd rather play bowl games than play in the NCAA sponsored playoffs.

And that's why entry to the FBS is open-ended: Average 15,000 fans a year for two years, and give out 85 (?) football scholarships, and University of Phoenix can call itself "FBS" too.

Would the NFL or NBA or MLB ever have that kind of entry system? Of course not, because the hallmark of an actual league is very tight control over entry, with no automatic entry marks but rather voting by league members case by case or the awarding of league franchises.

In the NFL, the divisions whose champs automatically make the playoffs have zero control over anything, including even their membership. If the NFL wants to move the NY Giants out of the NFC East and move the Miami Dolphins in, they just vote on it and it's done, the division has no say.

In contrast, can the NCAA determine the membership of the SEC or C-USA? Can it vote to move school A from the SEC to the Sun Belt and school B the reverse? Of course not.

That tells you that the NCAA-FBS is in no way a "league" of competitors like the NBA or NFL. It's just an administrative category for bowl-playing teams, and those teams can leave or change their status whenever they want. The actual leagues are the conferences. The SEC is a league, so is the Sun Belt. FBS isn't, obviously.

Heck, if the AFC East wanted to negotiate a separate TV deal for itself, do you think any court would allow it? It would be absurd, because the NFL teams truly are a single league under shared governance, they can dissolve the AFC East any time they want. But the court ruled the opposite when the SEC and Big 8 wanted to sign their own TV deals.

You basically lost the "same league" argument 34 years ago. Sorry about that.