Can Your Team Afford a Playoff?
Okay. So you want a playoff. You have many reasons for wanting one and I understand completely. The two main reasons seem to be:
1) The BCS does not give us a clear champion
2) There are millions to be made from a playoff scenario
I am going to attempt to address reason number 2. The idea that there are millions of dollars of revenue just waiting to be had by everybody if there were a playoff.
First, some background info. Last year 1.9 million people attended all the bowls and $222 million was shared by teams and conferences. Also, all revenue numbers I will reference are from the 2003-04 season and are football dollars only.
So, lets break it down. A true playoff will have to include at least 12 teams. The idea of a four team elimination match after the bowls is in no way a playoff. A playoff needs enough teams to give it a sense of being legitimate. Our playoff will use the 11 conference champions plus one at-large bid that goes to a qualifying independent. Last year that would have been Navy at a respectable 8-4. Much to my surprise, applying this format to last seasons teams found 8 of the 12 teams involved ranked in the final BCS poll. That’s a pretty decent representation. The top 4 teams will receive first round byes and top seeds host all games up to the championship. You have to do this simply because no fan base, no matter how rabid they may be, can possibly travel to a neutral site 3 weeks in a row. It just won’t happen. For the sake of argument I literally put the four unranked teams names in a hat and drew them out for their seeding. Here’s how it would have looked.
Oklahoma (1), Florida (2), USC (3) and Utah(4) would have byes.
Penn St. (5) vs. Troy (12)
Boise St. (6) vs. Buffalo (11)
Cincinnati (7) vs. Navy (10)
Va. Tech (8) vs. E. Carolina (9)
Some interesting match ups and the second round (if the seeds held) would have been pretty good also. PSU vs. Utah would have been worth watching. But the question is….Can your school afford this?
No. It can’t afford this and here’s why.
In order for this to happen the regular season schedules would have to be modified. That means either having two schools play a potential 17 game schedule or dropping the regular season to 10 games. Dropping the regular season to 10 games would more than likely be the choice here and that’s where the problems begin. Using the numbers from the years I listed above, here are some examples as to why your school can’t afford this.
Ohio St played 13 games that year and averaged $3.6 million per game. It is estimated that they take in about $5 million per home game. So losing 3 games in the regular season means a loss of at least $10.8 million to Ohio St.
Just one team you say. My conference is strong. We can handle it.
6 of the top 10 teams in revenue from that year were in the SEC. They combined for $18.9 million per game. Three games not played means $57 million lost to the conference. And that’s just those 6 teams. That’s not including the other half of the conference.
So the question is this. Can a playoff A) replace the dollars lost due to a reduction in regular season games and B) replace $222 million now being paid out by the bowls? The games lost in the regular season alone would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars not being generated for teams and conferences. Even if we keep the regular season as it is and allow schools to play more games if they reach the playoffs, the lost revenue from the smaller bowls, that would surely go under if placed opposite a playoff game, would be devastating to the smaller programs. Don’t forget, only the conference champs get to take the extra ride. No more double dipping by conferences as they do in the BCS. It’s a lot of money folks. A whole lot of money.
Can your school afford a playoff? The answer is clearly….NO
You have done a great job laying out how a playoff would work. I agree that it would need to be 8 or more teams in order to give it a playoff feel, and I’d be happy with 16 teams! There are two points in your article that I don’t believe are likely to be part of a playoff system. The first is home field advantage. There is not a tradition in NCAA tournaments of having the games in teams home stadiums. Basketball? Nope. Baseball? Nope. Home field advantage is something that has been created by professional sports to use the stadiums the owners have an interest in and funelling more revenue towards these stadiums. The most likely and profitable way to handle location is to have the first round at a regional stadium and the final few rounds at destination stadiums. The rabid fans will gobble up the tickets to the regional game and some of the remaining tickets, but once you get to the NC game it is all corporate and fat cat money anyway. The national championship game will sell out. The second errant point is the need to cut the regular season to 10 games. The college presidents and athletic directors may like to talk about protecting the tradition of student athletes, but their actions show the exact opposite. They were against the BCS national championship game moving past New Years for the same reasons. They must have gotten over it when the check arrived.
There will be a playoff system someday. It might start with four teams or sixteen, but it will happen. College budgets are tightening up all over the country, and the presidents are starting to look around for new money. The biggest problem is that it might not be the best economic time to put a playoff out for bid. With advertising budgets getting tighter I can’t imagine anyone stepping up with new money.