LSU vs. Alabama: Crimson Tide Wins National Championship, so What Next for CFB?

Monday night’s NCG at the Superdome was a coronation for the Alabama defense and coaching staff. A talented LSU offense team looked all slow and no geaux. Congrats to the Crimson Tide and Coach Saban on a masterful performance. 

For everyone else in college football, the BCS title game hopefully served as a turning point. 

The current BCS system, while an incredible boon to the NFL’s Southeastern Division—errrrr, I mean, the Southeastern Conference, is becoming increasingly less satisfying to the rest of the BCS conferences, the other FBS schools, and the fans and viewing public. 

Only a handful of the college bowl games were sellouts. Actual butts-in-seats attendance at many of the bowls appeared even more dismal, with vast swaths of empty seats clearly visible on television broadcasts, including some of the BCS bowls. USA Today has reported that average attendance at bowl games was the lowest in over 30 years. 

This followed a regular season where, according to the Sports Business Journal, TV ratings fell for all the major networks, and average game attendance fell to 45,523, the lowest since 2004. 

Even worse, if the attendance figures for the top 20 schools are excluded (and that includes seven SEC schools), the average attendance for the other 100 FBS schools falls to only about 37,000 per game. 

To put this in perspective, did you know that in this country in 2011, professional soccer games—MLS soccer—averaged 17,872 fans per game (As Allen Iverson might say, “Soccer!—we're talking ‘bout soccer!”)?

Now, part of this fall-off in CFB attendance and interest can be attributed to the ongoing economic malaise. For example, lower end-zone tickets at last week’s Fiesta Bowl cost $235 each. While Stanford and Oklahoma State both sold out their full allotment of 17,500 tickets, with such pricey tickets, is it any surprise that the bowl fell a few thousand short of a sellout? 

In addition, the amazing technological developments in HD television and on-field cameras make your family room couch a better seat than just about any at the stadium. 

But there’s no denying that for many fans, the popularity of CFB is hitting the wall. 

As a result, the powers that be must now consider a playoff format of some sort, if for no other reason, just to recapture the attention of fans that have become resigned to the same old, same old.

For several years, the same season-ending script has played out, with powerful SEC teams earning multiple spots in marquee bowls, and of course, winning the NCG on an annual basis.

A number of coveted and guaranteed BCS bowl bids have been awarded to less than stellar champions from other BCS conferences. Meanwhile, near-perfect teams from non-BCS conferences are routinely relegated to lesser bowls played before part-empty stadiums.

A playoff, be it plus-one or something more elaborate, would grab everyone’s attention and rekindle interest in CFB. And who knows, in a playoff system a non-SEC team might even win it all someday.