College Football Playoffs Vs. BCS: Why Colleges Prefer BCS

Before college football begins another potentially controversial season—coaches, players, and fans should know the rules.

Before any weird tiebreakers are applied, before slipups against huge underdogs, all 119 FBS teams should be aware that there is no college football playoff system.

There is a Bowl Championship Series that will decide the BCS national champion, the team that will be almost universally recognized as the nation’s top team in January 2010. There should be no more tears in the BCS crying game.

But since the argument rages, despite ESPN’s recent deal that ensures the BCS will be in place until 2014, there’s no better time than the offseason, when passions are quelled, to examine the many financial and logistical advantages of the BCS system vs. a playoff format.

For the Love of Money

Financially speaking, there shouldn’t be any debate about whether the current bowl system, including the BCS, is better than a playoff format with eight or 16 teams.

College football teams and their conferences, especially the big six conferences, have experienced an astronomical increase in profits and bowl payouts since the inception of the BCS in 1998.

Networks pay lots of money to air college football bowl games under the current format. There were 34 bowl games following the 2008 season, and the 68 teams received payouts totaling around $200 million for schools across the country.

The NCAA is not a part of the bowl system and bowl committees try to create fun experiences for schools and their fans while earning profits for their community.

A playoff system with only 16 teams and 15 games would diminish the value of other bowl games which currently generate hundreds of millions of dollars for schools across the country.

While many would be excited to see the best teams in the country battle it out in a college football playoff, conference commissioners know that football is the breadwinner for many schools and their athletic departments. There are guaranteed payouts for all bowl games whereas there has been little discussion on how to pay college playoff teams or non-playoff bowl participants.

Then there’s the matter of finding a network willing to pay billions of dollars to broadcast college football playoffs.

Which network would be willing to pay for the television rights to a 16-team, 15-game, four-week college football playoff that would compete with NFL coverage?

ESPN/ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, and the NFL Network spend considerable portions of their budgets to air NFL games and they, along with their affiliated networks, would be unlikely to broadcast college football playoff games. College football playoffs would probably compete with the NFL games which are now aired on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Logistical Headaches

Those who support a playoff system usually fail to point out where prospective playoff games would be held.

Would there be home-field advantage or neutral sites? Could teams use current bowl sites? What about using NFL stadiums?

The general assumption is to hold the bowl games at current bowl sites. But bowls and their committees have no reason to relinquish conference ties and relationships that have enabled college football to grow. They’re making mega-bucks with the current setup, and they’re under no pressure to change.  

There is little likelihood that fans would travel around the country to support their teams during the holiday season.

A potential national champion under a 16-team playoff format could play 18 games. If bowl games are held at neutral sites, holiday-weary fans would have to travel four consecutive weeks, an expensive endeavor in any financial climate, but an unnecessary expense in the current economic downturn.

What about game times and the schedule for games? Would teams play 18 consecutive weeks? Most teams have a bye week during the season, but a few teams don’t and others have early byes and would play in 10-plus games without a break. Playoff participants with professional aspirations would be at a bigger risk than their non-playoff counterparts.  

More Controversy with Playoff Format

Usually there are four or five legitimate teams in the national championship debate at the end of the year.

With a 16-or eight-team playoff format, there could be more than 40 teams involved in the debate. Unless there are automatic berths for conference champs, the big six teams would probably grab the majority of playoff berths, leaving non-BCS teams with the same troubles they currently endure.  

There are 11 conferences in the FBS, but simply naming conference champs would be absurd due to strength of schedule.

Conferences would argue for their teams, fans would still be mad, and schools would still complain about a flawed system.

There would be politics, not unlike those that were already in place before the BCS, involved in choosing game sites and teams for what would be a move to another flawed system.

There has always been controversy about who’s the real champion in college football. An NCAA-sanctioned playoff format is unlikely and any other type of playoff system would still create a “mythical” national champion in the eyes of frustrated fans.

At its heart, college football is subjective.

Bowls choose the teams they want to play. Writers and coaches rank teams every week during the season. The Heisman Trophy goes to the player voted as the best in the nation.

Even a playoff would feature selective choices for its participants.