It's the limited post-season that gets nationwide attention for games. Remember we have still regional leagues. They've expanded sure, but they are still only taking up a portion of the country each. There are also more than 120 teams including 54 power conference teams. If you want a big audience in the Midwest watching games for a west coast conference early in the season, you need to have a reason for them to do it beyond the small possibility it effects one of several wildcards (odds are the Midwest team doesn't even play a team in other league at all).

As things have stood, a top team loosing anywhere in the country is a big deal if your team has any kind of national title hopes regardless of the point in the season. A four team playoff probably won't be big enough to end that (although I do think will effect it more than they like), but if we get to the point that conference champs are guaranteed a spot there's a lot less reason to worry about games going on around the country. Think about it like basketball. The sport is a lot more regional. A lot more people only follow it at the conference/regional level (including myself) and drawing them in for big regular season games across the country is a lot harder.

With 8 teams I don't think you'd have any issues. P5 conference champs plus a few other highly-rated teams. They at least should do that.

(04-25-2013 08:20 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  It's the limited post-season that gets nationwide attention for games. Remember we have still regional leagues. They've expanded sure, but they are still only taking up a portion of the country each. There are also more than 120 teams including 54 power conference teams. If you want a big audience in the Midwest watching games for a west coast conference early in the season, you need to have a reason for them to do it beyond the small possibility it effects one of several wildcards (odds are the Midwest team doesn't even play a team in other league at all).

As things have stood, a top team loosing anywhere in the country is a big deal if your team has any kind of national title hopes regardless of the point in the season. A four team playoff probably won't be big enough to end that (although I do think will effect it more than they like), but if we get to the point that conference champs are guaranteed a spot there's a lot less reason to worry about games going on around the country. Think about it like basketball. The sport is a lot more regional. A lot more people only follow it at the conference/regional level (including myself) and drawing them in for big regular season games across the country is a lot harder.

The NFL includes a third of its teams into the playoffs. Thier big national games do just fine. What drives interest is having a chance at the playoffs. Baseball was the last professional league to finally admit that expanded playoffs drives more interest in the regular season.

Even in an expanded 8 team college playoff---- if only 8 out of 126 teams are included in the playoffs, any game in any given week could be the game that causes a school to be eliminated. The seedings will affect who plays who in the playoffs. The only thing that changes with a more inclusive playoff is that more schools are alive longer---meaning more drama and more interest because more games are important.

(04-26-2013 12:37 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The NFL includes a third of its teams into the playoffs. Thier big national games do just fine. What drives interest is having a chance at the playoffs. Baseball was the last professional league to finally admit that expanded playoffs drives more interest in the regular season.

If you're going to use pro sports as examples, then you have to talk about the NBA and NHL. In both leagues, more than half the teams make the playoffs. Does that drive more interest in the regular season? No. Only the most diehard fanatics pay close attention to the NBA and NHL regular seasons.

(04-26-2013 12:37 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The only thing that changes with a more inclusive playoff is that more schools are alive longer---meaning more drama and more interest because more games are important.

In the last couple weeks of the season, I agree. What college football does better than anyone though is make the games for the entire season important. Oregon vs. LSU week 1 was a national championship elimination game. Everyone knew that the looser of that game was probably out of the race. That made it interesting across the country. You take away that aspect of it and the game drops in value some. After that, each game involving a top team is interesting because any upset likely kills national title dreams. Even against bad teams, the top teams couldn't afford to lose which adds something even to those games. In most other sports/levels, one loss doesn't matter, but here it does and that makes for compelling TV. That being true is one of the defining marks of college football and something I think has been a big part of its growth even though most would prefer a bigger playoff.

I'm not arguing for a one size fits all model. I think baseball was wise to go to the current approach which emphasizes division races. In baseball, the absolute must see regular season games for non-fans of a given team are hard to find and more positions in the playoff at stake (and bigger rewards for division winners) help baseball a lot more than they take away. The NBA and NHL though I think are too big. The NFL works as it is, but I don't think anything close to its current model would not work if you doubled the size of the league. Do that, and the big national games draw fewer viewers as there are so many more regional games to look at.

They probably used the same consulting firm that NIU used when they named their new residence hall...

"New Residence Hall".

(04-26-2013 02:24 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  In the last couple weeks of the season, I agree. What college football does better than anyone though is make the games for the entire season important. Oregon vs. LSU week 1 was a national championship elimination game. Everyone knew that the looser of that game was probably out of the race. That made it interesting across the country.

If we're going to have an honest argument on this, then let's be totally up front. Heard of the anthropic principle? It's a philosophical consideration that warns against extending truisms beyond their scope (for instance, diamonds are valuable because they are relatively rare on Earth but if we colonized another world with an abundance of diamonds their value would plummet, so "diamonds are valuable" is not a basic truth). So, allow me to rephrase your post as, "The sports media hyped Oregon vs. LSU week 1 as a nat'l champ. elimination game. Everyone knew, because they bought into the media's hype, that the looser [sic] of that game was probably out of the race. That made it interesting to those who swallowed the media's bait and resulting in sky-high TV ratings across the country."

Yes, within the context of the system the sports media participates in creating AND profits from at the same time, that game was of HUGE importance. It might have LESS importance in another system, but you can't argue from that assumption that the other system cheapens the entirety of the regular season. The same total number of viewers could be watching college football in the hypothetical new system, but just not ALL watching one game...which would hurt Disney's profit from that one game...and Disney happened to be the loudest voice in the media telling the sheep, er... sports fans, how critically important that game was. Hmmm....

The NFL does monster ratings in the regular season while the games aren't nearly as important. I think that is reflected in late September and October games. Unless there are pivotal home field advantage type games, the ratings tend to level off, although they are still through the roof. You can equate that to the length of the regular season. While it feels very short for fans, is actually a good four months (one longer than CF). It's tough maintaining that level of interest each and every week, while networks pray the schedules and projected records of teams going into the year allign to create those monster matchups. It cannot be duplicated week in and out.

CF needs to break its regionalism. You have an SEC team in the final every year and it's not going to perk interest across the country. Take out the Cinderella, you kill March Madness up until the Final Four. How do you expand these things? Increasing access obviously. But the playing field is still not going to be level. How many Cinderella's can realistically get into the top four playing a garbage conference schedule? It makes for great debate though, notorious debate albeit.

They have to find that medium as the NFL has. The NFL is a national league. If you are in New York, you watch the Broncos. If you are in L.A, you watch the Cowboys. And CF has enough "brands" across the country. I think they need to find that medium to break its regionalism. What they have done is a good start, but 6-8 teams moves them close to expanding that access and maintaining regular season incentives with byes or easier 1st round games.

I'm telling you right now, teams that are locked into the top four going into the final week will mail in those games at one time or another, and there will be a massive uproar once that happens.

(04-26-2013 02:24 AM)ohio1317 Wrote:  

(04-26-2013 12:37 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  The only thing that changes with a more inclusive playoff is that more schools are alive longer---meaning more drama and more interest because more games are important.

In the last couple weeks of the season, I agree. What college football does better than anyone though is make the games for the entire season important. Oregon vs. LSU week 1 was a national championship elimination game. Everyone knew that the looser of that game was probably out of the race. That made it interesting across the country. You take away that aspect of it and the game drops in value some. After that, each game involving a top team is interesting because any upset likely kills national title dreams. Even against bad teams, the top teams couldn't afford to lose which adds something even to those games. In most other sports/levels, one loss doesn't matter, but here it does and that makes for compelling TV. That being true is one of the defining marks of college football and something I think has been a big part of its growth even though most would prefer a bigger playoff.

I'm not arguing for a one size fits all model. I think baseball was wise to go to the current approach which emphasizes division races. In baseball, the absolute must see regular season games for non-fans of a given team are hard to find and more positions in the playoff at stake (and bigger rewards for division winners) help baseball a lot more than they take away. The NBA and NHL though I think are too big. The NFL works as it is, but I don't think anything close to its current model would not work if you doubled the size of the league. Do that, and the big national games draw fewer viewers as there are so many more regional games to look at.

The size of the playoff in basketball is a factor--but it's not the major factor. The biggest factor is the number of games. College football has 12 regular season games--of which only 6 or 7 are at home. Professional basketball has 82 regular season games The season begins in Oct and ends in the middle of summer. No one game means ANYTHING. A win over the Lakers in October means nothing more than a win over the Knicks in March. The fact that no single game is truely important long with nearly half the league making the post-season is the trouble with the NBA regular season. Too many games is the biggest issue with the MLB regular season also.

College just has 12 regular season games. If just 8 of 126 teams make the playoff (a bit over 5%), the FBS playoff would be the most exclusive post season of all major sports while doing the best job of any major sports of maintaining the integrity of the regular season.

(04-26-2013 12:36 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  I'm telling you right now, teams that are locked into the top four going into the final week will mail in those games at one time or another, and there will be a massive uproar once that happens.

I agree 100%, but looking at the situation, I wonder how often this would really happen.

In the last 5 years, going into the last weekend, the only team I can think of that had absolutely zero chance of falling out of the Top 4 after a loss would be 2011 LSU. Heck, they might not have even fallen out of Number One!

In 2012, Notre Dame was probably safe going into the USC game. But with Florida, K-State, Oregon, and the SEC Champ all in the mix, there might have been at least some slight room for doubt if the Irish were to "tank" that one (plus...can anyone really imagine Notre Dame tanking against USC?!?)

In 2011, Alabama, Oklahoma State, and Stanford were all in must-win situations in their season finales. LSU probably could have "tanked", as I mentioned above.

In 2010, Auburn might have been safe (similar to 2012 Notre Dame), but a loss to the Gamecocks would have had them behind Oregon for sure, and possibly TCU. After their near-loss against Bama, a committee might see a "tanking" effort as instability, and instead consider Stanford and Wisconsin for the other two spots.

In 2009, with so many unbeatens, no one was assured of a Top 4 spot with a loss. No chance of tanking that year.

In 2008, with so many one-loss teams (Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, USC, Texas Tech) plus undefeated Alabama and Utah (and Boise...though they were a bit further down to be a dark horse), no one was assured of a Top 4 spot with a loss. No tanking that year, either.

So I agree that this could be a legitimate concern. But thankfully, I think we should feel safe that this won't be a regular occurrence.

(04-24-2013 11:02 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  These "they' gonna leave" theories lack something.

A REASON TO DO IT

So they can have all the money?

The group of five revenue is a whopping $1.32 million per Rich 5 school.

"Officially" the group of five receive 27% of the revenue, but that is because the three contract bowls aren't counted in the split. The net CFP revenue is expected to be about $320 million with CFP paying 27% to the group of five that's $86.5 but if you add the contract bowl distribution to the CFP, the share set aside for the group of five is a bit over 15%. The same amount the non-AQ receives when there is a buster.

That's $40 million each for Big 10, Pac-12, SEC, Big XII and $27.5 million for ACC

What you aren't calculating in here is an academic component (roughly 300k per school) and an expenses component (1.5 million per conference) in the numbers.

P5 Contract/Academic/Expenses
B1G 40.0 mil/4.2 mil/1.5 mil (45.7 mil)
SEC 40.0 mil/4.2 mil/1.5 mil (45.7 mil)
PAC 40.0 mil/3.6 mil/1.5 mil (45.1 mil)
B12 40.0 mil/3.0 mil/1.5 mil (44.5 mil)
ACC 27.5 mil/4.2 mil/1.5 mil (33.2 mil)
ND 3.5 mil/0.3 mil/0.0 mil(3.8 mil)
+ Semifinal Participation Bonus (4 x 6mil)
+ Host Bowl Participation Bonus (7 x 4 mil)
+ Second Orange Participant (27.5 mil)

P5 Total Distribution: 297.5 million

G5 Split/Competitive Split/Academic/Expenses
AAC 12.0 mil/6.4 mil/3.6 mil/1.5 mil (23.5 mil)
MWC 12.0 mil/5.4 mil/3.6 mil/1.5 mil (22.5 mil)
MAC 12.0 mil/4.4 mil/3.9 mil/1.5 mil (21.8 mil)
SBC 12.0 mil/3.4 mil/3.6 mil/1.5 mil (20.5 mil)
CUSA 12.0 mil/2.4 mil/4.2 mil/1.5 mil (20.1 mil)
Army/BYU 1.75 mil/0.6 mil/0.0 mil (1.75 mil)
+ Access Bowl Participation Bonus (6 mil)

G5 Total Distribution: 116.15 million

FBS Distribution Percentage
P5 71.9%
G5 28.1%

The remaining 50-60 million is sent to FCS out of the 475 million contract value. This doesn't include marketing rights into the total which favors the P5 distribution more.

The 29% figure thrown around by Aresco is kind of a stretch. Figuring the initial year the CFP is to be worth 475 million, the G5 share is 24.5% in value. Over the length of the contract they are increasing the G5 competitive cash by 5% a year according to the chart provided by the Idaho AD.