Unsurprisingly, there will be no plus one system added to the BCS for the 2010 season. It always was a non-issue since the Rose Bowl contract with ABC goes through 2014. Any big changes like a plus one system will have to come when all of the TV rights expire in the same year.
Beyond that though, the Big Ten and Pac 10 were never going to allow it to happen. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney loves being the playoff villain. He has stated on the record that a playoff could be good for college football as a whole, but adds, “I don’t work for college football at large.” His goal is to advance the Big Ten brand, and he sees tradition, the Rose Bowl, and a TV network as the way to do that.
Pac 10 Commissioner Tom Hansen has also said that the Pac 10 would rather secede from the BCS than have a plus one system. The ACC, Big 12, Big East, and SEC were willing to discuss the matter at the BCS meetings this week, but the Big Ten and Pac 10 had no plans for giving it a fair chance. Only the SEC and ACC were fully committed to the plan.
I keep hearing the same arguments over and over about why there shouldn’t be a plus one system. I will now address them one by one.
A Plus One system will inevitably grow
Not necessarily. Major League Baseball, having had playoffs since 1903, kept a four team playoff up until 1994. The only reason it expanded was because of expansion of the league. It stands at 8 teams currently, and there are no plans for the foreseeable future to change that.
Compare that with the hallowed bowl system, which has now expanded to 34 in total. That means 68 teams, or about 57%, of the 120 Division I-A teams will be going bowling. In the two years that wins over I-AA teams have counted towards being bowl eligible, 73 and 71 teams have made the 6-6 threshold. That’s cutting it awfully close.
Also, thanks to 6-6 teams losing bowls, we now have bowl teams finishing under .500 for the year. Is that really what people want? And what if there aren’t 68 bowl eligible teams in a season?
The arrangement only encourages more I-A teams playing I-AA teams, which weakens the regular season. I thought that’s what we were preserving…
A playoff dilutes the regular season
No, extra-long regular seasons dilute a regular season. Let’s go back to baseball. When only 4 teams made the playoffs every year, did anyone care about May baseball games? Of course not. There were a million other ones leading up to October. I also hear about how March Madness killed the college basketball regular season. It didn’t; everyone playing 30+ games before March killed the college basketball regular season.
Before there was a national title game in college football and teams just played to get to bowls, college football had a great regular season. Once a national title game was established, it made it even better because the competition suddenly expanded beyond conference borders.
Somehow, these BCS proponents think that everyone competing for 4 spots instead of 2 will instantly kill the regular season. That it will make Florida and FSU fans suddenly get along because who needs a rivalry now that four teams have a shot at winning it all at the end of the year instead of two? That Sooners and Longhorns will do the same, or that a September match up of USC and Ohio State will be not be as exciting.
You know how much a difference there is between two teams and four playing for the national title at the end of the year? It’s 1.67% of all I-A teams, or 3% of all BCS conference teams. No, giving four teams a chance to win it all doesn’t devalue the regular season because the scarcity of regular season games will still be there, and an very small percentage of teams will actually be playing for the title.
A playoff devalues the Rose Bowl
Here’s a hint: when the Rose Bowl joined the BCS, it gave up all claims to tradition. The only thing that makes it special over the other BCS bowls anymore is that it’s older than them. That’s it and that’s all.
The final ship to sail in this argument shoved off when Texas beat USC in the 2005 Rose Bowl to win the national championship. It should have become clear right then and there that the Rose Bowl is a great site to hold a game, but it’s the meeting of two great teams that make the game great.
This year’s Rose Bowl just further illustrates the point. We had a Big Ten/Pac 10 meeting, and it was a horrible game. Ohio State’s performance against LSU indicated that had OSU met USC instead of Illinois playing the Trojans, it wouldn’t have been much different. Great games are made by great teams, not stadiums. What happens on the field is what matters, not what occurs on Colorado Boulevard.
Ratings and revenues are up; the BCS must be what fans want
People like college football. That is what people want. They will pay to watch it in person regardless of the postseason format. They will watch it on TV regardless of the postseason format.
Let me tell you a story. The iPod mini was once the best-selling iPod of all time. It was even the best-selling portable audio device in the world in its day. In September 2005, Apple made a bold move and replaced it with the iPod nano. It was a risk because of the enormous popularity and revenue stream the mini had. The nano ended up being even more popular, selling a million units in just 17 days.
In short, this argument is a non sequitur. Correlation does not equal causation, and the BCS format isn't driving the rise in ratings and revenues. The popularity of football as a whole is.
A playoff would make football a two semester sport
With spring practice, football already is a two semester sport.
Ignoring that for a moment, I don’t see how a plus one makes the postseason any longer. The 1-4 and 2-3 games would happen on New Years, and the title game would happen a week later. That’s the same timing that we have with the current BCS bowl arrangement, so this one is nothing but hot air.
It kills the tradition of the bowls
Too late. By segmenting off the BCS games, we already have tiers in the postseason. Besides, once we got bowls in Shreveport, Detroit, and especially Toronto, they no longer were about giving teams a reward for a good season by getting to play a game in nice locale.
Besides, not one playoff proposal I’ve seen, Mike Slive’s included, has proposed killing off all of the bowl games in favor of keeping only a playoff. No one is suggesting that, and having a plus one system will not diminish the prestige of the Papajohns.com bowl. It never had any in the first place.
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I welcome any comments/discussions on the topic. If there are any other objections about a having a plus one system in college football, I’d love to hear them. It just infuriates me to no end to know that the people in charge of the system are getting rich off of fan dollars while not delivering what the fans want.
Comments (7) Add a comment »
from 15 days ago
It infuriates me to no end as well and im glad im not the only one. the only thing is that they are betting that no matter how upset we are about the bcs system we simply arent going to do anything about it. there are 820,000 bowl games and almost 90% of them have zero significance. they only exist to draw money from sponsors. I was in favor of any small concession the bcs committee might make for the good of college football, be it a plus one or playoff or anything that prevented what happend to my beloved bulldogs last year as we whipped hawaii and then had no chance to move on while ohio state got to get beat in yet another championship game nobody thought they were going to win anyways.
from 15 days ago
Great article. I've been trying to write on this subject for a couple of days and never had the energy to finish. Thankfully you did. Pick of the day vote from me.
A couple of extra thoughts:
As we just found out, the Big 12 teams unanimously voted against a Plus-one. Just wait until their best team gets left out of the big game like Auburn did in '04. It's easy to enjoy a system that has placed one of its teams in the championship game 5 times, more than any other conference. Wait until you don't get that benefit of the doubt.
The SEC is undefeated in BCS champ bowl games at 4 - 0. Every other conference has a losing record except for the Pac 10, which is 1 - 1. So the teams who get to the final game and often don't deserve it are in favor of keeping things exactly as they are. The SEC gets there, wins, and even has undefeated teams left out. It's making much more sense as to why Mike Slive is the one presenting this to a bunch of deaf ears.
But the part that bothers me the most is this quote from Mike Tranghese:
"I know that's not what a lot of fans want to hear, but they're not responsible for crafting what it is we have in college football."
No, Mike. We're not responsible for crafting it. We're responsible for funding it. We buy the tickets, the hot dogs, the jerseys, and make the cross country trips to support our teams. When we can't, we sit in front of televisions which lead to ratings revenue trickling back down into your pocket. WE ARE THE CUSTOMER, and yet what we say doesn't matter one bit.
from 15 days ago
A quote from sports.espn.go.com:
"Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) are introducing a resolution rejecting the oft-criticized bowl system as an illegal restriction on trade because only the largest universities compete in most of the major bowl games. The resolution would require Justice's antitrust division to investigate whether the system violates federal law."
Here's the link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3351626
I looked up the law regarding anti-trust behavior, and it will be interesting how this works out in Congress-- from my layman's perspective, it seems that the BCS could be in trouble for getting to decide "who" gets to play for the big bucks (BCS schools + Notre Dame) and who doesn't (non-BCS schools), unless of course they are "invited"
From comments I've read on the above article, and in the Honolulu papers, people in general seem to think the investigation into the BCS is a waste of time. However, if it were Microsoft or ATT being investigated for unfair trade and possible monopoly, I think the attitude would be quite different. However it seems from what I've read and understand that the laws may still be applicable. (In this case, might the BCS be considered an oligopoly?)
In its current method of bowl determination, ithe BCS makes it highly improbable (if not impossible) that any non-BSC team will ever be playing for the Nat'l Championship. That said-- the "big bucks" split by BCS affiliates year after year from all BCS Bowl games, only serve to make those schools and conferences richer and more powerful-- because the losers, as well as the winners get paid. In the meantime-- it keeps non-BCS schools in "their place"-- Sadly, it sounds like it was designed to do just that-- and they are proud of it!
Money and power are at stake...this could get very ugly.
Great analysis on a rather forward thinking and controversial topic. Great job.
from 14 days ago
I actually covered their actions last week, in a two-part deal.
Part 1: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/19275-Congress-and-the-BCS-Part-1-230408
Part 2: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/19521-Congress-and-The-BCS-Part-2-240408
Basically, I think there's little grounds for getting the government involved in the BCS. The change will have to come from within.
from 14 days ago
I really like this article, especially the way it logically points out flaws in many anti-playoff arguments. I'm a Pac-10 fan and I'm embarrassed no end that the conference the team I root for plays in is so implicit in keeping the system the way it is, especially when Pac-10 teams have been screwed by the system before (Oregon in 01, USC in 03, some less controversial ones in 04 and 05 because Cal and Oregon respectively lost in the Holiday Bowl after being slighted by the BCS). I love the Rose Bowl but there is no reason that things have to stay the way they have been for fifty years forever more. Change happens, it is natural and necessary. College football needs a change that will allow every team, no matter what conference they play in, a chance at a national championship for their competitive division.
from 14 days ago
excellent article here. The thing that makes no sense is that the Big 10 and Pac 10 are holding the rest of the leagues hostage, claiming the tradition and ohter BS about the Rose Bowl and cry about any type of playoff. Also until I hear one of the other 4 league commissioners on record about not wanting a playoff, I do not believe either big 10 or pac 10 commish say that everyone is against it. If the Big 10 and Pac 10 want to keep tradition let them stay in the Rose Bowl and let the rest of cotllege football have at least a plus one and lets see how many national titles either conference gets.
from 14 days ago
Go back and have a look at that first article link. WHat you're looking for is there.
"In the end, only the SEC and ACC wanted to even continue the discussion of the plus-one."
"On Wednesday, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, for the first time, made it known publicly that their leagues also were against even the smallest possible playoff."
"Tranghese said he favored an unseeded version of a plus-one, which would set the championship game matchup after the four major bowls are played using the BCS standings, over seeding the top four and playing them off... 'The seeded model looked like a playoff, and we don't think a playoff is in the best interest of college football,' he said."
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