Analyzing ‘Death To The BCS’ : Chapter One

With the Miami Hurricanes sitting out a bowl game in 2011, there’s definitely some downtime this post-season and with the BCS looking as messy as ever, now seemed as good a time as any to revisit “Death To The BCS”, the book touted as ‘the definitive case against the Bowl Championship Series’.

“Death To The BCS” is a an eighteen-chapter read. Earlier this week we focused on the Introduction and The Cartel. Next up; Chapter One : The Plan.

– There are three chief criteria for a playoff plan to work: (1) Profitable across the board for colleges / universities, (2) protect and increase the value of the regular season and (3) academics must be taken into consideration, if for nothing more than to allow presidents to save face regarding their long-standing hypocrisy on the issue.

– The Cartel welcomes the playoff debate because the more off-the-wall suggestions for how to fix things, the easier it is to dismiss as “confused ramblings of uninformed outsiders”. Suggestions that include dropping regular season games, eliminating conference title games or using bowl games as host sites for playoff games would never fly with the colleges / universities out there, which again is why The Cartel welcomes these types of ramblings that will never bring change.

– Former Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen, a hardcore BCS backer, agrees that the blueprint offered by the D.T.T.B. authors is the only workable solution for Division I-A football: A sixteen-team playoff with automatic bids for all eleven conference champions and at-large slots for five remaining teams.

While this includes lousy teams like the winner of the Sun Belt Conference, for the sake of the integrity of the system and relevancy of the regular season, it must play out this way. (Plus, there are still fifteen other slots.)

The goal is to reward the regular season, which this model does. The best teams earn higher seeds and are rewarded with home seeds the first three rounds, with the championship held at a neutral site. The No. 1 seed doesn’t just get rewarded with an opening game against No. 16, it gets home field on lockdown.

Furthermore, there’s more separation between first and fifth as No. 5 would face a pretty good No. 12 team from a power conference, as well as a second-round game on the road.

– This model also removes the stale environments of neutral sites, making first round games against ‘lesser’ foes more enjoyable as the stakes are high for the home crowd. It also piques the interest of the casual fan the same way March Madness does, where little schools dare to dream and outsiders tune in hoping for an upset.
– A selection committee, much like the one used for the men’s basketball committee, would determine the five at-large bids. This would result in more informed decisions, eliminating confused poll voters and “mathematically dubious computer formulas”.

There would still be arguments regarding teams being left out, but you’re dealing with No. 17, not No. 3 – as well as two- or three-loss teams, as opposed to a qualified undefeated. (Undefeated Auburn 2004, SEC Champ, ring a bell?)

– There would be tremendous competition for the final five at-large spots, which would bring more excitement to the month of November and big games down the stretch. Pac-10 teams would be following the Big East, SEC fans the MWC and ACC fans the WAC. TV ratings would jump, the Internet would be abuzz and anyone would be eligible for an at-large spot, independents or affiliated.

– The entire playoff would take place over four weekends – the same time the current bowl system operates. There would be a two- to three-week window for final exams, with the games kicking off the weekend before Christmas and coming to a close the second Monday in January – the same date as the current BCS title game.

At MOST, two teams would play seventeen games, which is only one more than some high school state championships.

– The rest of the bowl system would stay in-tact, which is something The Cartel tries to fool fans into believing wouldn’t be the case. The lesser bowls would have no role in the playoff, but would continue to provide non-playoff teams a chance to enjoy the post-season.

All of this would end “the most illogical business arrangement” in all of sports; the fact that college football outsources its most-profitable product — post-season football. The bowl system, a consolidation of private businesses with no official ties to universities, sucks tens of millions of dollars in profit away from the schools. With on-campus games, the money stays in college athletics.

– With this aforementioned playoff plan, current BCS payouts would look like chump change – something The Cartel admits.

“I am absolutely sure that an NFL-style football playoff would provide maybe three or four times as many dollars … than the present system currently does.” – Big Ten commissioner and head of The Cartel, Jim Delany, when speaking before congress in 2005.

– The current bowl system pays college football about $220M in gross revenue annually. After the costs of tickets, travel, bonuses, et al, schools walk with upwards of $140M in profit.

Delany projects a potential $880M gross through a playoff system. D.T.T.B. authors peg it around $750M for the playoffs alone, with each of the fifteen games paying out upwards of $25M per team.

A first-round playoff game would next conferences 40 percent more than the current BCS Championship game. Even with TV taking a huge cut, an estimated $860M in post-season money is waiting to be tapped.

– D.T.T.B authors aren’t claiming to reinvent the wheel, instead looking towards a system that works for Division I-AA, Division II and Division III. The NCAA is far from perfect but has obviously proven its skill in running national tournaments in eighty-eight different sports.

The issue lies in the association’s central office having no power or jurisdiction over major college football’s post-season.

Delany and the other members of The Cartel participate in high-level committees that make NCAA policy on all things except the college football post-season, yet step outside those roles, put on their BCS hats and run that too.

Confusion (and getting paid) remains the goal of The Cartel. Blame the other guy, blame the wrong guy and keep people debating while the perfect plan waits to be implemented.

– Next up, Chapter Two: What Could Have Been and a focus on “exposing The Cartel to its very last fiber.”

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