(11-13-2018 04:11 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  There is money to be made that isn't right now being made. The NCAA FBS football economy can expand, and make everyone more prosperous just as the proverbial rising tide lifts all ships.

This is where we'll need to disagree.

It's not clear to me how this particular proposal makes more money for the P5 (which is what matters because if they don't make more money, then the proposal is DOA). They all have multi-billion TV contracts that are based on regular season rights, more millions of dollars that are based on regular season home game revenue, more millions of dollars that are based on their conference championship games, and more millions of dollars that are from the contract bowls like the Rose and Sugar Bowls... and that's before we even get to the CFP money that is 90/10 in favor of the P5. You're advocating a system that would replace all of that revenue that is 100% controlled by and guaranteed for the P5 with a variable compensation system that is not controlled by the P5.

Plus, even if you could make more money under this proposal, once again, the expansion of the *overall* "FBS economy" is irrelevant. I don't see what's in it for the P5 any more than I don't see why a company like Amazon would just unilaterally give up their advantages in scale, cloud computing and logistics to a competitor. Lots of playoff proposals argue that an NCAA Tournament-style would make more money and I grant that might be possible. However, any NCAA Tournament-style playoff inherently means that the P5 gives up their control and access advantages, which is a non-starter. Conference realignment and the new playoff system has shown that control is every bit as important as money to the power conferences - it's not an "either/or" choice for them.

If I were the university president of a P5 school where my actual *job* was on the line (and not being an outside observer that can advocate using other people's money), there's absolutely nothing compelling about this proposal whatsoever. There's NFW that I'm giving up control over access or dollars in college football. It doesn't mean that it's a bad proposal from a fan standpoint, but it just won't ever make sense from a P5 standpoint (and that's all that matters).

I've already largely addressed my reasoning for saying that there is still money on the table, and won't bore anyone by repeating myself.

I'll only add this one thing in that vein that occurred to me yesterday as I was driving...

If one believes that "games of consequence" are, pun intended, consequential to fan enthusiasm... and thus, TV ratings, not to mention ticket value... and thus, additional economic activity that would not otherwise occur, at least in comparison to what it otherwise would be... then, it is just a natural conclusion that when you add... get this... 165 125 games of consequence to the 1320 regular season inventory annually, plus 32 more in the lead-up to bowl games... more than 10%... you're maximizing your capacity to promote fan enthusiasm, TV ratings, and ticket value.

And for you who focus only on the autonomous conferences schools, about half of those games can be expected to be exclusively between those schools.

By "games of consequence," I mean that a team goes into that game with something definitive to play for... that a win or a loss has objective consequences, not just potential consequences depending on what other teams do or don't do and not just depending on how a committee might look at them in comparison to others.

It really creates an embarrassment of riches where TV is concerned... whereas right now, you have TV schedulers having to hope that the schedule will produce more competitive games, if you'll just try to look at this objectively, this framework actually bakes into the cake that there will automatically be those. As someone said earlier, the same principle applies here... the more they can add certainty to the economic ecology, the more the NCAA, and yes the auto conf schools, can expect to gain in contract negotiations.

Then, you said...

Quote:Lots of playoff proposals argue that an NCAA Tournament-style would make more money and I grant that might be possible. However, any NCAA Tournament-style playoff inherently means that the P5 gives up their control and access advantages

This is what I think is the major flaw in your thinking, that is, that you are so myopic on how whatever new would affect a particular subset of the overall NCAA economy, you are disinclined toward it if you sense any risk.

It's not unlike how American unions have traditionally viewed international competition... but our American economy has grown significantly through the decades since government has become increasingly more open to free trade rather than protectionist policies... Americans not afraid to compete, because we know we have better access to more resources that make it advantageous to us.

In this case, in fact, you have not only the opportunity to grow the NCAA football entertainment enterprise even beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but even internally... forgive, I'm repeating myself on this one... you even set up a system where the auto conferences' supposed preferred wish comes true, in that, there is no more automatic payday for a non auto conference school... rather, *they have to earn their way* (!).

(11-14-2018 07:03 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  I've already largely addressed my reasoning for saying that there is still money on the table, and won't bore anyone by repeating myself.

I'll only add this one thing in that vein that occurred to me yesterday as I was driving...

If one believes that "games of consequence" are, pun intended, consequential to fan enthusiasm... and thus, TV ratings, not to mention ticket value... and thus, additional economic activity that would not otherwise occur, at least in comparison to what it otherwise would be... then, it is just a natural conclusion that when you add... get this... 165 games of consequence to the 1320 inventory annually... more than 10%... you're maximizing your capacity to promote fan enthusiasm, TV ratings, and ticket value.

And for you who focus only on the autonomous conferences schools, about half of those games can be expected to be exclusively between those schools.

By "games of consequence," I mean that a team goes into that game with something definitive to play for... that a win or a loss has objective consequences, not just potential consequences depending on what other teams do or don't do and not just depending on how a committee might look at them in comparison to others.

It really creates an embarrassment of riches where TV is concerned... whereas right now, you have TV schedulers having to hope that the schedule will produce more competitive games, if you'll just try to look at this objectively, this framework actually bakes into the cake that there will automatically be those. As someone said earlier, the same principle applies here... the more they can add certainty to the economic ecology, the more the NCAA, and yes the auto conf schools, can expect to gain in contract negotiations.

Then, you said...

Quote:Lots of playoff proposals argue that an NCAA Tournament-style would make more money and I grant that might be possible. However, any NCAA Tournament-style playoff inherently means that the P5 gives up their control and access advantages

This is what I think is the major flaw in your thinking, that is, that you are so myopic on how whatever new would affect a particular subset of the overall NCAA economy, you are disinclined toward it if you sense any risk.

It's not unlike how American unions have traditionally viewed international competition... but our American economy has grown significantly through the decades since government has become increasingly more open to free trade rather than protectionist policies... Americans not afraid to compete, because we know we have better access to more resources that make it advantageous to us.

In this case, in fact, you have not only the opportunity to grow the NCAA football entertainment enterprise even beyond anyone's wildest dreams, but even internally... forgive, I'm repeating myself on this one... you even set up a system where the auto conferences' supposed preferred wish comes true, in that, there is no more automatic payday for a non auto conference school... rather, *they have to earn their way* (!).

Your comments prompted me to think of two things, and forgive me if I am misunderstanding the proposal:

1) I don't think "seeding" is itself much of a consequence fans would be excited about playing for, and IIRC, that's what the bulk of the season, the first 7 games, would be about. Those first seven games will be devalued, not up-valued, because everyone would know that in week 8 (or whatever it is), there will be a game that determines whether you advance to the "playoff pool" or not, and since the first 7 games do not eliminate anyone, they will be viewed as far less important.

E.g., compare with college hoops: Yes, just about all conferences have a conference tournament such that the winner of the tournament makes the NCAA event no matter how terrible their regular season was. You could go 0-25, but if you win the conference tournament, you get the automatic bid to the NCAA. But, crucially, the regular season isn't devalued, because most teams get into the tournament via the at-large process, which of course depends almost entirely on how you did during the regular season, with the conference tournament being a kind of "last chance" if you screwed that up. But in this proposal, the pair-off games in week 8 are the only thing that matter, the only way to advance. That makes that game incredibly important, but games before it nearly meaningless.

2) I think this proposal misunderstands college football culture, which is based on tradition and history. E.g., in a couple weeks, Mississippi State and Ole Miss will play their annual Egg Bowl rivalry game, and that game will sell out even though both teams have long since been eliminated from national title consideration.

College football culture just has never had the "everyone deserves a defined path to the national title" element that is characteristic of other sports, and the vast majority of college football fans are fine with that, as evidenced by the sport thriving for the past 130 years. The football teams are viewed as the embodiment/teamsonification of their universities, and in many cases their states or regions.

Don't get me wrong: There is, and always has been, a swath of fans and analysts who bemoan the lack of a NFL-style defined path to a national title. But it always has been and is a minority view. The bulk of fans are not interested in seriously upending the structure of the regular season to accommodate it. At least not from what i can see.

3) Also, I think you misunderstand Tank's point about control. I don't think he cares about whether the P5 controls access to the playoffs or whatever, he's saying that the *P5 themselves* care. Whether they should or not, they do (and I agree with him here), and thus that has to be factored in to whether a proposal is realistic or not.

The P5 are not interested in a "true meritocracy", either in terms of money or access. They want the lion's share of both whether they have earned them or not, and currently that's how it is. So any system that upsets that situation is likely to be viewed as suspect not by Frank but by the P5. And importantly, the P5 are not "just a subset of the overall NCAA economy", they are the lion's share of it: To the extent that college football has an 'economy', generates income and national interest, it is the P5 that largely does that generation. So what they want counts more. And that mindset is IMO not a case of myopia in the face of changing demand conditions, as with the auto unions the past 40 years. There's little evidence that college football is in decline. Attendance is slightly down, but revenues are massively up.

FWIW, the G5 don't want a meritocracy with respect to money either. No administrator wants their athletic department to operate on a commission basis, because performance on the field is volatile and thus would make budget planning very difficult. Everyone wants money to be largely guaranteed, with the variable/merit element being a small part of it. That's how it is with NCAA hoops. The variable money a conference earns from teams advancing in the tournament is a small % of overall conference revenue.

(11-13-2018 03:48 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  You are trying to cure a disease that doesn't exist for the overwhelming majority of schools and fanbases out there.

Bingo

(11-14-2018 09:08 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 03:48 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  You are trying to cure a disease that doesn't exist for the overwhelming majority of schools and fanbases out there.

Bingo

I've just some limited time today, so will postpone getting to quo vadis' post maybe tomorrow... but to this, I can make the very short and poignant reply that there is NEVER a time in a capitalist environment when one should presume, "that's it, we've hit our ceiling, it's silly to pursue any more money than we already have flowing into this enterprise called NCAA FBS football."

It's like telling the NFL in the 60s or 70s, "Hey, guys, you're doing about as well as you should/could ever hope... I mean, baseball has always been this country's pastime, so just relax and be content."

No disrespect, but that kind of thinking is nonsense.

There is *always* a disease that *any* business fights, just by nature of the beast, and that is to find ways to do what you do better today than you did it yesterday... and in so doing, grow your market bigger tomorrow than it is today.

(11-14-2018 02:44 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 09:08 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 03:48 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  You are trying to cure a disease that doesn't exist for the overwhelming majority of schools and fanbases out there.

Bingo

I've just some limited time today, so will postpone getting to quo vadis' post maybe tomorrow... but to this, I can make the very short and poignant reply that there is NEVER a time in a capitalist environment when one should presume, "that's it, we've hit our ceiling, it's silly to pursue any more money than we already have flowing into this enterprise called NCAA FBS football."

It's like telling the NFL in the 60s or 70s, "Hey, guys, you're doing about as well as you should/could ever hope... I mean, baseball has always been this country's pastime, so just relax and be content."

No disrespect, but that kind of thinking is nonsense.

There is *always* a disease that *any* business fights, just by nature of the beast, and that is to find ways to do what you do better today than you did it yesterday... and in so doing, grow your market bigger tomorrow than it is today.

Scheduling is by no means perfect. Of course there are changes that can be made.

For example, I'd love to see the SEC go to 9 conference games and eliminate permanent cross division rivals. Would give a huge selection and greater variety of conference games that are sorely lacking right now. That would be a huge improvement.

The changes you're suggesting, however, would be to the detriment of actual fans that go to actual games and would long term be damaging to the sport. Clemson or South Carolina fans aren't going to magically drop everything and travel across the country on short notice to go play Arizona St or whoever. They want to play teams that they have a history of playing.

(11-14-2018 02:58 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 02:44 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 09:08 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  

(11-13-2018 03:48 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  You are trying to cure a disease that doesn't exist for the overwhelming majority of schools and fanbases out there.

Bingo

I've just some limited time today, so will postpone getting to quo vadis' post maybe tomorrow... but to this, I can make the very short and poignant reply that there is NEVER a time in a capitalist environment when one should presume, "that's it, we've hit our ceiling, it's silly to pursue any more money than we already have flowing into this enterprise called NCAA FBS football."

It's like telling the NFL in the 60s or 70s, "Hey, guys, you're doing about as well as you should/could ever hope... I mean, baseball has always been this country's pastime, so just relax and be content."

No disrespect, but that kind of thinking is nonsense.

There is *always* a disease that *any* business fights, just by nature of the beast, and that is to find ways to do what you do better today than you did it yesterday... and in so doing, grow your market bigger tomorrow than it is today.

Scheduling is by no means perfect. Of course there are changes that can be made.

For example, I'd love to see the SEC go to 9 conference games and eliminate permanent cross division rivals. Would give a huge selection and greater variety of conference games that are sorely lacking right now. That would be a huge improvement.

The changes you're suggesting, however, would be to the detriment of actual fans that go to actual games and would long term be damaging to the sport. Clemson or South Carolina fans aren't going to magically drop everything and travel across the country on short notice to go play Arizona St or whoever. They want to play teams that they have a history of playing.

Exactly! We set our OOC based on fan appeal. We would rather play a 6 win Auburn than a 10 win Northwestern because :

A. We have history with Auburn
B. The schools share a culture as fellow ag & mechanical schools
C. It benefits our recruiting
D. It's an easy road trip for the majority of our alumni & fan base

We have zero history with Northwestern. We don't regularly recruit Chicago, and it's not an easy road trip.

This entire thread is a cure in search of a disease.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
Your comments prompted me to think of two things, and forgive me if I am misunderstanding the proposal:

1) I don't think "seeding" is itself much of a consequence fans would be excited about playing for, and IIRC, that's what the bulk of the season, the first 7 games, would be about.

First, thank you for a well-thought-out response.

Yeah, so I consider that phase to be no different than what the current regular season is.

Those games, then, do not fit the definition of games of consequence because there is no objective consequence to each one of those games.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
Those first seven games will be devalued, not up-valued, because everyone would know that in week 8 (or whatever it is), there will be a game that determines whether you advance to the "playoff pool" or not, and since the first 7 games do not eliminate anyone, they will be viewed as far less important.

You have it right, but I don't understand the idea of them being any more "devalued" than any other conference game we have in any given current regular season. It's not devalued or upvalued but just the same.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
E.g., compare with college hoops: Yes, just about all conferences have a conference tournament such that the winner of the tournament makes the NCAA event no matter how terrible their regular season was. You could go 0-25, but if you win the conference tournament, you get the automatic bid to the NCAA. But, crucially, the regular season isn't devalued, because most teams get into the tournament via the at-large process, which of course depends almost entirely on how you did during the regular season, with the conference tournament being a kind of "last chance" if you screwed that up. But in this proposal, the pair-off games in week 8 are the only thing that matter, the only way to advance. That makes that game incredibly important, but games before it nearly meaningless.

Pardon my reaction, but... "nearly meaningless"... really?... I just come away from that feeling you're stretching now.

You really don't think that a team is going to value gaining the highest seed/avoiding the lowest seed for Consequence Saturday?

I would point you to the final weeks of the NFL season, when teams jockey for position to gain higher seeding in order to provide themselves the best opportunity/easier road to a championship... we can agree that teams rarely come out and say, "we need to win this game so that we can play the Bengals instead of the Patriots in the first round," but virtually no one fails to understand those realities.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
2) I think this proposal misunderstands college football culture, which is based on tradition and history. E.g., in a couple weeks, Mississippi State and Ole Miss will play their annual Egg Bowl rivalry game, and that game will sell out even though both teams have long since been eliminated from national title consideration.

It is a trade-off in terms of when the game is played.

So, I agree with the sentiment, and/but would only disagree with the verb chosen... it's not a matter of "misunderstands," but is a matter that any new framework is inherently going to make changes, and some number of those changes will have some pushback/recoil associated with them.

That's understood going in.

And it's just a matter of assessing the overall gains versus the overall losses, and determining if there is a net gain. And, of course, the criteria that one person uses in making that assessment is often different than what another person uses. That's why I think it important to put the goals of the concept right up top, so it's understood what the preface is for even attempting to think through this framework.

I'm not ignorant to the fact that most people who come and post to a thread like this are going to be troubleshooters, and as such, not particularly receptive to concluding there's a net gain... and/but in fact, I have come to appreciate that because it helps me personally assess any idea/concept in this vein better.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
College football culture just has never had the "everyone deserves a defined path to the national title" element that is characteristic of other sports, and the vast majority of college football fans are fine with that, as evidenced by the sport thriving for the past 130 years. The football teams are viewed as the embodiment/teamsonification of their universities, and in many cases their states or regions.

Well, yes and no.

Let's be honest that it never could have that "defined path" before. The evolution of the game began in a time when it was too expensive for teams to travel great distances for regular season games both in regard to money and time because of the number of players. Add to that the natural logistics that, unlike other sports, there was a real need for recovery time between games, so playing on average every week was a built-in expectation... and then, add to that, as mentioned in one of my posts above in this thread, you had calendar restrictions that only apply because the Academe established, essentially, a September-to-December schedule for everyone. So, what happened as a result is that schools focused on forming conferences, and winning their conferences' titles. That's all that could be hoped to be done.

If that were satisfactory, I ask why we ever went past that.

Obviously, it wasn't satisfactory.

Polling of sportswriters (AP) and polling of coaches (UPI) was the first attempt to quench the thirst to determine a national champion.

Obviously, that wasn't satisfactory.

So in recent years, we gained a national championship game.

But then, who decided who got to play in it?... that wasn't satisfactory for the same essential reason that polling wasn't... we all... all of us who have played sports and who consider ourselves fans... just want things decided on the field in an empirical, tangible way, not left to the opinion of x-number of other human beings.

So, in still more recent years, we gained the "plus one" lead-up to the NCG.

But we still have people making the case for an 8 game or a 16 game tournament. The takeaway is that there is and will always be reason to want to eliminate human opinion from the equation, because to the degree you accomplish that, you have achieved an irrefutable national champion... you make it so a UCF cannot in any way/shape/form claim to be the national champion.

The desired conclusion, at least since the advent of air travel when it became a logistical possibility to not just be content with conference champions, has always been to end up with a national champion that has completely been decided on the field.

The puzzle has always been that we have too many teams playing in the upper tier division, and too little time to make it all happen in a rational way.

This framework, I suggest, is one reasonably-well-thought-through way to solve that puzzle.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
3) Also, I think you misunderstand Tank's point about control. I don't think he cares about whether the P5 controls access to the playoffs or whatever, he's saying that the *P5 themselves* care. Whether they should or not, they do (and I agree with him here), and thus that has to be factored in to whether a proposal is realistic or not.

We agree that they care... but then, dig deeper... why do they care?

Can we not agree?... money?

The money part is its own other conversation. There is nothing inherent in this framework that would cause them to see any less money, and to the contrary, I'm asserting that any time you bake into the cake more reason for more enthusiasm and more interest, you're going to see more revenue... from TV, from tix, from merchandise.

I understand the skepticism that a dyed-in-the-wool autonomous conference fan brings to these discussions... that it's just another scheme on the part of a non-autonomous fan has cooked up in order to slice more money away from the auto schools... the whole meritocracy thing.

But that's just not the case at all, at least in this instance. Not. At. All.

The concept here, rather, is as I said before, to grow the overall enterprise, and to take advantage of the fact that you have, in essence, 130 "franchises" dotting the entire United States, and it only serves to reason that you take advantage to put in place a system that stimulates ever-more interest.

Then, between maximizing interest and then designing the money side to concentrate more reward for the conferences that produce, say, those final 8 teams... there's no actual inherent economic downside to the autonomous conferences here. (And, even if there was, they would control things such that they could re-adjust if they felt it important to do so.)




Circling back to where this started, by "games of consequence," I meant irrefutably, objectively consequential... that is, there is tangible consequence due to win or loss in a specific game that does not currently exist:

- Consequence Saturday games (65)

- NC Pool games (32 + 16 + 8 + 4 = 60)

- Tier Three (8) and Tier Two (24) Bowl Qualifier games

And/but by the way, I need to correct myself. That's not 165, but just 157 games of consequence. And/but, it seems all-but-certain that you'll end up with so many more late season competitive games and fewer late season bodybag games, I would mostly be forgiven for my initial miscalculation. :)

(11-14-2018 02:58 PM)Gamecock Wrote:  The changes you're suggesting, however, would be to the detriment of actual fans that go to actual games and would long term be damaging to the sport. Clemson or South Carolina fans aren't going to magically drop everything and travel across the country on short notice to go play Arizona St or whoever. They want to play teams that they have a history of playing.

I'm not sure where we missed each other, but we did. Possible that I just didn't explain very well.

The first 7 games are scheduled either by the school or its conference.

The 8th game, on Consequence Saturday, is inherently a conference game.

So that leaves us with the 4 remaining games. What about them?

If you're in the NC Pool, you are placed in a 16-school regionally-determined bracket, ostensibly conceived around west, central, east and southeast orientations... and for the vast majority of schools, that first Saturday will be played against a peer from within their own conference, and quite possibly, even in the second.

The entire season, then, is comprised of either games that the school itself determined, or within some geographical proximity to its location.

If you're in the Regular Pool, then the graphic says you'll be assigned a 4-game slate comprised of at least one conference game and, otherwise, regional competitive opponents.

And it's also came up and worth noting again, that the framework presents new opportunities for many rivalry games to be played that fans ostensibly want but aren't currently getting played.

Kaplony, I can't help but notice that twice now, I find that I've explicitly responded to something you've brought up... the concern about fan travel, and then this thing about "cure in search of a disease"... and both times, the reply seems to have gone unnoticed and the points made, dismissed out-of-hand.

Not to be condescending, but if productive discussion is a desired outcome, then there has to be some acknowledgement of the point made, and then a corresponding counterpoint offered in return... or, and this happens especially rarely on sports forums, of course, but among those of us who like to fancy ourselves intellectually honest, there's also the option to say, "Hmmm... okay. I see your point."

(11-15-2018 10:30 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
Your comments prompted me to think of two things, and forgive me if I am misunderstanding the proposal:

1) I don't think "seeding" is itself much of a consequence fans would be excited about playing for, and IIRC, that's what the bulk of the season, the first 7 games, would be about.

First, thank you for a well-thought-out response.

Yeah, so I consider that phase to be no different than what the current regular season is.

Those games, then, do not fit the definition of games of consequence because there is no objective consequence to each one of those games.

See to me, they are different. E.g., when Michigan played Notre Dame in week one, each team knew that, while yes, neither a win nor a loss would guarantee any consequence, surely a loss would hurt the team's chances of making the final 4 playoffs. That's true of all regular season games in the current system. In contrast, in your model, the consequence of a game 1-7 loss is much smaller, it hurts your seeding position for the one game that truly matters in week 8.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
Those first seven games will be devalued, not up-valued, because everyone would know that in week 8 (or whatever it is), there will be a game that determines whether you advance to the "playoff pool" or not, and since the first 7 games do not eliminate anyone, they will be viewed as far less important.

You have it right, but I don't understand the idea of them being any more "devalued" than any other conference game we have in any given current regular season. It's not devalued or upvalued but just the same.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
E.g., compare with college hoops: Yes, just about all conferences have a conference tournament such that the winner of the tournament makes the NCAA event no matter how terrible their regular season was. You could go 0-25, but if you win the conference tournament, you get the automatic bid to the NCAA. But, crucially, the regular season isn't devalued, because most teams get into the tournament via the at-large process, which of course depends almost entirely on how you did during the regular season, with the conference tournament being a kind of "last chance" if you screwed that up. But in this proposal, the pair-off games in week 8 are the only thing that matter, the only way to advance. That makes that game incredibly important, but games before it nearly meaningless.

Pardon my reaction, but... "nearly meaningless"... really?... I just come away from that feeling you're stretching now.

You really don't think that a team is going to value gaining the highest seed/avoiding the lowest seed for Consequence Saturday?

Very little. I don't think that is going to be of much interest to fans, and I imagine coaches will gladly sacrifice seeding e.g. to rest hurting star players to make sure they are healthy for the game that matters. I imagine a lot of sandbagging will happen.

I would point you to the final weeks of the NFL season, when teams jockey for position to gain higher seeding in order to provide themselves the best opportunity/easier road to a championship... we can agree that teams rarely come out and say, "we need to win this game so that we can play the Bengals instead of the Patriots in the first round," but virtually no one fails to understand those realities.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
2) I think this proposal misunderstands college football culture, which is based on tradition and history. E.g., in a couple weeks, Mississippi State and Ole Miss will play their annual Egg Bowl rivalry game, and that game will sell out even though both teams have long since been eliminated from national title consideration.

It is a trade-off in terms of when the game is played.

So, I agree with the sentiment, and/but would only disagree with the verb chosen... it's not a matter of "misunderstands," but is a matter that any new framework is inherently going to make changes, and some number of those changes will have some pushback/recoil associated with them.

That's understood going in.

And it's just a matter of assessing the overall gains versus the overall losses, and determining if there is a net gain. And, of course, the criteria that one person uses in making that assessment is often different than what another person uses. That's why I think it important to put the goals of the concept right up top, so it's understood what the preface is for even attempting to think through this framework.

I'm not ignorant to the fact that most people who come and post to a thread like this are going to be troubleshooters, and as such, not particularly receptive to concluding there's a net gain... and/but in fact, I have come to appreciate that because it helps me personally assess any idea/concept in this vein better.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
College football culture just has never had the "everyone deserves a defined path to the national title" element that is characteristic of other sports, and the vast majority of college football fans are fine with that, as evidenced by the sport thriving for the past 130 years. The football teams are viewed as the embodiment/teamsonification of their universities, and in many cases their states or regions.

Well, yes and no.

Let's be honest that it never could have that "defined path" before. The evolution of the game began in a time when it was too expensive for teams to travel great distances for regular season games both in regard to money and time because of the number of players. Add to that the natural logistics that, unlike other sports, there was a real need for recovery time between games, so playing on average every week was a built-in expectation... and then, add to that, as mentioned in one of my posts above in this thread, you had calendar restrictions that only apply because the Academe established, essentially, a September-to-December schedule for everyone. So, what happened as a result is that schools focused on forming conferences, and winning their conferences' titles. That's all that could be hoped to be done.

If that were satisfactory, I ask why we ever went past that.

Obviously, it wasn't satisfactory.

Polling of sportswriters (AP) and polling of coaches (UPI) was the first attempt to quench the thirst to determine a national champion.

Obviously, that wasn't satisfactory.

So in recent years, we gained a national championship game.

But then, who decided who got to play in it?... that wasn't satisfactory for the same essential reason that polling wasn't... we all... all of us who have played sports and who consider ourselves fans... just want things decided on the field in an empirical, tangible way, not left to the opinion of x-number of other human beings.

So, in still more recent years, we gained the "plus one" lead-up to the NCG.

But we still have people making the case for an 8 game or a 16 game tournament. The takeaway is that there is and will always be reason to want to eliminate human opinion from the equation, because to the degree you accomplish that, you have achieved an irrefutable national champion... you make it so a UCF cannot in any way/shape/form claim to be the national champion.

The desired conclusion, at least since the advent of air travel when it became a logistical possibility to not just be content with conference champions, has always been to end up with a national champion that has completely been decided on the field.

The puzzle has always been that we have too many teams playing in the upper tier division, and too little time to make it all happen in a rational way.

This framework, I suggest, is one reasonably-well-thought-through way to solve that puzzle.

I see your logic, but my take is a little different. First, while there is no question that the trend has been towards playoffs and 'deciding things on the field', the trend has been a slooooooooow one. It has taken us 25 years to go from no playoff, to a two team playoff, to a four team playoff.

What that suggests to me is that rather than the push for a playoff coming from fans and public pressure, it's more likely come top-down, as the powers that be have come to accept that these playoff baby steps have meant more money.

Sure, there have always been arguments about national champions, and many schools have made many claims, but basically you name a year and there is a clear consensus on who the champ was that year, or there is an acceptance that the championship was split - the last such year being 2003, when LSU and USC split the major polls. College football fans have always been, as a group, OK with that, despite some voices in the wilderness (or at least the outer suburbs) proposing NCAA hoops type tournaments, etc.

Bottom line is, in terms of legitimacy, Alabama 2017 is widely regarded as every bit the national champion that Villanova is in basketball, Ohio State 2014 is regarded as every bit the national champ that UConn is in basketball, 2010 Auburn is regarded as national champ every bit as much as Duke is in basketball, 2005 Texas is regarded as every bit the champ that North Carolina is in basketball etc. Despite its flaws, the football system does produce a consensus champion in the vast majority of years.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  
3) Also, I think you misunderstand Tank's point about control. I don't think he cares about whether the P5 controls access to the playoffs or whatever, he's saying that the *P5 themselves* care. Whether they should or not, they do (and I agree with him here), and thus that has to be factored in to whether a proposal is realistic or not.

We agree that they care... but then, dig deeper... why do they care?

Can we not agree?... money?

Money and power. The money part will take care of itself. Why did we get the BCS and then the CFP? IMO not because of fan pressure, but because the major players, the Power conferences, became convinced it meant more money.

But, as Tank says, control matters too. Control is deeply rooted in the human psyche. It has its own value independent of money, it speaks to needs for dominance and security. Long term, does LSU want a school like ULL to have the same 'path' to a title, that could cause ULL's recruiting to improve and eventually challenge LSU hegemony in the state? No they do not.

There is clearly a relative component to the joy of money. Is it is awesome to have $50 million? I'm sure it is. But it's surely a lot MORE awesome to have $50 million when the average person around you has only 1/1000 of that than it would be if all of us had $50 million. The joy is in having more WHILE others have less.

(11-06-2018 06:28 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Note: The title is intentionally composed to attract attention, and I may be overselling to some degree... but we'll see what people think...

There are some details that would make the already-word-heavy graphic even more so, but conceptually, I would just make a FAQ to cover those if it ever came to that.




Why did I do this? Well, this kind of thing is a recreational puzzle of sorts to my brain in the way that a crossword puzzle might be to someone else... challenging myself to see what I can come up with, and maybe keeping me sharper than I otherwise might be for the actually important usually stressful professional puzzles that need resolution every day, week, month and/or year.

Just askin'

Will this mean that every school will need to be prepared to host a home game in week eight, depending on their W-L record? That half of them will simply "nevermind" the fans, stadium employees, community hotels & restaurants, media partners. That Michigan might miss out on a 110,000 fans payday to play on the road in Indiana? I've never planned an event for one hundred thousand attendees and the accompanying hospitality, security, parking, and traffic control staff. I'm guessing it's complicated, even with a year's notice. As you refine this idea, based on feedback, perhaps you could make up a to-do list for host teams. Do you envision any eager fans encountering travel issues because of the short notice?

A sreenwriter once typed, "Ten thousand soldiers rode over the hill on horseback." He handed the script to the director and said, " Now go and do your job."

(11-15-2018 11:27 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Kaplony, I can't help but notice that twice now, I find that I've explicitly responded to something you've brought up... the concern about fan travel, and then this thing about "cure in search of a disease"... and both times, the reply seems to have gone unnoticed and the points made, dismissed out-of-hand.

Not to be condescending, but if productive discussion is a desired outcome, then there has to be some acknowledgement of the point made, and then a corresponding counterpoint offered in return... or, and this happens especially rarely on sports forums, of course, but among those of us who like to fancy ourselves intellectually honest, there's also the option to say, "Hmmm... okay. I see your point."

You have yet to address anything I have brought up other than to downplay it because it's a problem your Godawful idea doesn't take into account.

Time is limited, so let me just take one of these for now, and pledge to revisit the rest later...

(11-15-2018 12:22 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  
Your comments prompted me to think of two things, and forgive me if I am misunderstanding the proposal:

1) I don't think "seeding" is itself much of a consequence fans would be excited about playing for, and IIRC, that's what the bulk of the season, the first 7 games, would be about.

(11-15-2018 10:30 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  First, thank you for a well-thought-out response.

Yeah, so I consider that phase to be no different than what the current regular season is.

Those games, then, do not fit the definition of games of consequence because there is no objective consequence to each one of those games.

(11-14-2018 08:26 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  See to me, they are different. E.g., when Michigan played Notre Dame in week one, each team knew that, while yes, neither a win nor a loss would guarantee any consequence, surely a loss would hurt the team's chances of making the final 4 playoffs. That's true of all regular season games in the current system. In contrast, in your model, the consequence of a game 1-7 loss is much smaller, it hurts your seeding position for the one game that truly matters in week 8.

Right. I think I see the heart of your concern, then (?)...

Putting it together with what was said earlier, you're concerned that a team could theoretically and even somewhat realistically go 3-4 in weeks 1-7, win their game against a 4-3 opponent on Consequence Saturday, then go on a tournament run that, as it turns out, lands then in the NCG... with a 4-loss record.

I can understand the concern. That's largely unheard of in the current environment.

Let me offer a couple of points I think are missing from the context of that concern, though, okay?

First, that can happen in the NFL... a seemingly less deserving team can crack the playoffs as a wild card team with a 9-7 record, then go on a run, and actually win a Super Bowl. They still get the same trophy. They still receive a higher regard in the annals of history than the teams that were considered more deserving with 13-3 records.

So, the point being, people don't seem all that offended by that idea as it turns out.

Why not?

Well, that leads to the second point... "why not" is because the tournament/playoffs represents a higher caliber slate of games than the regular season was... and that's because of (a) the higher caliber of the stress (a win-or-go-home element) and/but more compelling, that's because of (b) the higher caliber of teams that week-after-week-after-week (a true gauntlet) that must be conquered.

Because of those elements, we aren't fazed by records of the regular season (which, of course is essentially a "seeding phase" as I've described it here), and not only "aren't fazed," we readily recognize that games won against proven premium competition is a better measure to help us render who is actually the best team.

To your example, how Michigan fares versus Notre Dame in that first week in this current framework matters more, yes... and yet, that's only because the current framework is handicapped by having to humanly/subjectively assess the value of that game when the committee meets...

So, in an environment (ie, sports) created to decide wins and losses in athletic competition by evidence of what happens on a field or court of play (ie, scores) rather than use human judgment to decide, we have presently a system that has to introduce and rely on, not 100% what happens on the field or court, but rather, partially on human judgment to make determinations of who is and who isn't worthy.

How counter-intuitive that is.

Building on that, a third point... circling back, in truth, few of us would ever accept an NFL season as legitimate if it was essentially comprised of 32 teams playing 16 games, and 4 of those teams being chosen by a committee to play two semi-finals leading to the Super Bowl (ie, replication of the current FBS framework).

Why is that the case?

Well, for one, because the 4 semi-final teams would each have only actually had to face 13 other teams in the seeding phase... less than half (42%) of the 31 others, 3 of them twice, 10 of them once.

How representative could that possibly be, after all?

Were it a less brutal, less physically-demanding game, and in a less restrictive calendar, we would see something more like professional baseball (facing 19 of the 29, or 65% of other teams)... or like professional basketball (facing all 29 other teams).

Point being:

If we would not be satisfied with the NFL adopting the current FBS framework... and that's with each facing 42% of the possible teams...

How much more reason shouts, then, that should we be less than satisfied with this present circumstance where teams are evaluated on the basis of only facing 8% of the possible teams (11 of 130)... or even if an autonomous conference team just wants to think in terms of those schools, we're still only talking about 17%.

No kidding... we only accept the current framework because it's all we've known. No rational person would design it this way.

This situation cries out for better vetting of that final four... which only happens by creating an equivalent gauntlet/testing for everyone to pass through.

(11-15-2018 01:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(11-15-2018 11:27 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Kaplony, I can't help but notice that twice now, I find that I've explicitly responded to something you've brought up... the concern about fan travel, and then this thing about "cure in search of a disease"... and both times, the reply seems to have gone unnoticed and the points made, dismissed out-of-hand.

Not to be condescending, but if productive discussion is a desired outcome, then there has to be some acknowledgement of the point made, and then a corresponding counterpoint offered in return... or, and this happens especially rarely on sports forums, of course, but among those of us who like to fancy ourselves intellectually honest, there's also the option to say, "Hmmm... okay. I see your point."

You have yet to address anything I have brought up other than to downplay it because it's a problem your Godawful idea doesn't take into account.

That response was predictable, but it's still disappointing. Anyone with any intelligence can see I made a legitimate attempt to think out-loud about your concern about fan travel. If you had any relevant counterpoint to make, there was ample source material there to work with. And, same for the cure/disease remark... if you have some come-back to the notion that there is, indeed, always economic self-interest served in attempting greater enthusiasm and interest, I've certainly invited that. But instead, you say, in effect, I'm the one avoiding substance.

Okay, then. I think there's little value to me to continue any further dialogue with you, at least on this topic. You don't strike me as someone interested in a productive discussion. You're entitled to say the same of me, of course, and I'm content we can just leave it there.

(11-15-2018 01:09 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(11-06-2018 06:28 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Note: The title is intentionally composed to attract attention, and I may be overselling to some degree... but we'll see what people think...

There are some details that would make the already-word-heavy graphic even more so, but conceptually, I would just make a FAQ to cover those if it ever came to that.




Why did I do this? Well, this kind of thing is a recreational puzzle of sorts to my brain in the way that a crossword puzzle might be to someone else... challenging myself to see what I can come up with, and maybe keeping me sharper than I otherwise might be for the actually important usually stressful professional puzzles that need resolution every day, week, month and/or year.

Just askin'

Will this mean that every school will need to be prepared to host a home game in week eight, depending on their W-L record? That half of them will simply "nevermind" the fans, stadium employees, community hotels & restaurants, media partners....

I don't disparage anyone not wanting to trudge through the so-far 3+ pages of thread material, and at the same time, my own self-interest in conserving time matters enough to me to not repeat myself... so as it occurs that something already discussed comes up, I'll try to just reference previous posts...

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15643368

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15645192

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15645996

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15651130

(11-15-2018 04:43 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

(11-15-2018 01:09 PM)33laszlo99 Wrote:  

(11-06-2018 06:28 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Note: The title is intentionally composed to attract attention, and I may be overselling to some degree... but we'll see what people think...

There are some details that would make the already-word-heavy graphic even more so, but conceptually, I would just make a FAQ to cover those if it ever came to that.




Why did I do this? Well, this kind of thing is a recreational puzzle of sorts to my brain in the way that a crossword puzzle might be to someone else... challenging myself to see what I can come up with, and maybe keeping me sharper than I otherwise might be for the actually important usually stressful professional puzzles that need resolution every day, week, month and/or year.

Just askin'

Will this mean that every school will need to be prepared to host a home game in week eight, depending on their W-L record? That half of them will simply "nevermind" the fans, stadium employees, community hotels & restaurants, media partners....

I don't disparage anyone not wanting to trudge through the so-far 3+ pages of thread material, and at the same time, my own self-interest in conserving time matters enough to me to not repeat myself... so as it occurs that something already discussed comes up, I'll try to just reference previous posts...

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15643368

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15645192

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15645996

https://csnbbs.com/thread-862667-post-15...id15651130

Sorry, you're treating this as though it were the American Legion Softball League. You don't wait for week 8 results and, only then, schedule games 9-12. Foolishness! These ideas you have about assigning home team (coin flip, negotiation) would only be acceptable to the handful of teams who draw fans so poorly that they have nothing to lose either way.

Might make no difference but there will, by necessity, be no teams with a bye on week 8. That's a lot of content that the TV networks will not have room for. (Although the really attractive teams will be competing in one-sided games, so maybe they won't care.)

Athletics Directors seem to struggle sometimes to complete a workable schedule, even when they do it years in advance. They do it carefully in order to get the most appealing slate in terms of competition, economics, and fan satisfaction. Can you imagine any one of them would willingly put their program at the mercy of your "surprise" opponent? This is equivalent to a blind date, but with millions of dollars at risk.

(11-15-2018 04:35 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

(11-15-2018 01:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(11-15-2018 11:27 AM)_sturt_ Wrote:  Kaplony, I can't help but notice that twice now, I find that I've explicitly responded to something you've brought up... the concern about fan travel, and then this thing about "cure in search of a disease"... and both times, the reply seems to have gone unnoticed and the points made, dismissed out-of-hand.

Not to be condescending, but if productive discussion is a desired outcome, then there has to be some acknowledgement of the point made, and then a corresponding counterpoint offered in return... or, and this happens especially rarely on sports forums, of course, but among those of us who like to fancy ourselves intellectually honest, there's also the option to say, "Hmmm... okay. I see your point."

You have yet to address anything I have brought up other than to downplay it because it's a problem your Godawful idea doesn't take into account.

That response was predictable, but it's still disappointing. Anyone with any intelligence can see I made a legitimate attempt to think out-loud about your concern about fan travel. If you had any relevant counterpoint to make, there was ample source material there to work with. And, same for the cure/disease remark... if you have some come-back to the notion that there is, indeed, always economic self-interest served in attempting greater enthusiasm and interest, I've certainly invited that. But instead, you say, in effect, I'm the one avoiding substance.

Okay, then. I think there's little value to me to continue any further dialogue with you, at least on this topic. You don't strike me as someone interested in a productive discussion. You're entitled to say the same of me, of course, and I'm content we can just leave it there.

After reading this I now understand your childish hissy fit about board reputation points in the Spin Room Wild West forum.

(11-15-2018 12:22 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Very little. I don't think that is going to be of much interest to fans, and I imagine coaches will gladly sacrifice seeding e.g. to rest hurting star players to make sure they are healthy for the game that matters. I imagine a lot of sandbagging will happen.

I'm honestly trying to imagine that.

Closest I can come to a real-life example of what you're describing is if a team already has its #1 seed nailed down, or possibly #2... so, perhaps in a Game 6 and/or Game 7 circumstance, and in view of the fact that they realize the gravity of failure in Game 8 or beyond.

As said, I'm just going from what we all know happens in the NFL... teams generally care about their seeding because teams generally desire to have the empirically easiest path to a championship that they can get. It hasn't yet been addressed why there would be some difference between how NFL teams think of it and how FBS teams would think of it.

(11-15-2018 10:00 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  After reading this I now understand your childish hissy fit about board reputation points in the Spin Room Wild West forum.

First, you clearly have read into that situation something that wasn't there. Second, I'm happy to let others figure out on the basis of the posts here who is actually attempting adult conversation and who is attempting that other thing you mentioned. You've made your feelings clear about the concept. Is there something more you want to add, or is it now just about personal attack?