I thought it would be good with all the changes down the road in the next few years anticipated in conference movements and impending changes to the MAC structure to put out all the ideas on the table and in one thread.

Here is one looking at a committee to select which 2 schools are worthy to play in a championship game:

Quote:MIAMI -- With no plans for a playoff, the Bowl Championship Series will consider using a committee of college football experts to set the next national title game.

"I have to tell you, I really do not see an NFL-style playoff coming to college football any time soon," BCS coordinator and Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said Tuesday.

Weiberg also said the BCS will search for a replacement for the Associated Press poll to help rank the top teams.

Five teams took perfect records into this bowl season, prompting many fans, players and even some coaches to call for a playoff format.

Auburn and Utah won their bowl games, and Boise State lost for the first time. Southern California and Oklahoma will play for the BCS title Tuesday night in a matchup of unbeatens in the Orange Bowl.

Weiberg said he is "very interested" in a committee structure that would be similar to the one used to set the field for the NCAA basketball tournaments.

"I'm not prepared to endorse it because I want to hear more about the discussion with my colleagues," he said.

"I think we certainly need to take a look and see whether there are alternatives in terms of whether there is another poll that could perhaps be plugged into the spot that was there for the AP poll," he said.

The men's NCAA basketball tournament uses a 10-person committee made up of conference commissioners and athletic directors to set its field of 65 teams.

A BCS selection committee likely would need more than 10 members, Weiberg said.

"I don't believe it would be an easy assignment, and I think my sense is, though, there would be people that would be willing to serve and that care a lot about college football, that have been tied to it in the past, that are part of institutions now that would likely step forward," he said.

Even if a committee is used to set the 1 vs. 2 game, and possibly even to create a pool of at-large teams for the bowls to choose from, it wouldn't eliminate the need for the BCS standings.

Weiberg said he didn't envision a committee setting all the matchups.

"We still are going to have a need in whatever system we have, even with a committee, to have some sort of standings," he said. "So it would be very likely that even in a committee structure, there would have to be some sort of published standings. How often it would occur, I don't know.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1958914

Here is some good old playoff talk. Its interesting to see that there are leaders at BCS schools with non-BCS roots that are sick of the current system.

Quote:ATLANTA -- If change in college athletics is like pulling teeth, you'd want Bernie Machen to be your dentist.

Florida's president -- and dental surgeon (doctorate from St. Louis University) -- wants to move quickly when it comes to a football playoff. Machen moved the discussion to a new level recently, convincing SEC presidents to discuss a playoff at their next conference meeting in June.

When CBS SportsLine.com sat down with him before Florida's second straight basketball national championship, Machen was more than revealing. The reason he is pushing his agenda is that Fox, he said, is pushing to extend its current BCS contract beyond 2010.


University of Florida president Bernie Machen says he has some backing from key people. (Provided to SportsLine)
Machen sees that as an extension of a flawed system.

"Which would just kill it (a playoff)," Machen said. "I made the pitch that if you're ever going to think about it, now is the time to think about it."

The structure of the playoff is merely a "detail." It's more important for him to work on the nation's presidents to go away from the BCS. Machen has a meeting set up on the subject with an upper echelon NCAA official who he won't name. Maybe more surprising is that Machen says that Walt Harrison "is totally with me." Who is Walt Harrison? Only the chairman of the NCAA Executive Committee.

The core idea: Set up a corporation that would run the playoff -- separate from the NCAA and the BCS commissioners.

"I've gotten a lot of inquiries from the non-BCS types and a few BCS types wanting to know what the hell are you doing this for?" Machen said. "Florida is creaming it why don't you just shut up?"

Yes, life is good right now in Gainesville. Machen's school is the first to own both major national championships in the same academic year. But he has stayed consistent. Before coming from Utah (a year before Urban Meyer left there), he was a playoff proponent. He remains one despite reaping millions from the BCS in the powerful SEC.

It remains unfair, he says, that SEC football weaklings Kentucky and Vanderbilt get more BCS money than his old school, which went to the Fiesta Bowl in 2004.

His anger first boiled over on the floor of the Georgia Dome in December. Florida had just won the SEC but at 12-1 still didn't know if it had qualified for the BCS title game despite No. 2 USC losing. Machen told reporters then that the system had to change.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/10105947

Good talk on alternative approaches to the present system including the names of a few bowls that are interested in joining the BCS.

Quote:The two-team limit per conference was upheld by the commissioners. Wisconsin, at 11-1, qualified last season out of the Big Ten but it was trumped by Ohio State and Michigan, which went to BCS bowls.

• No change was made in the criteria that allow a runner-up team from a conference to play for a national championship. Nebraska didn't even win its division in 2001 but played for the national championship. With the advent of divisional play, commissioners don't want to penalize a team that could finish ranked No. 2 and not play in a conference championship game but play for the national championship.

• It's no secret that Dallas (Cotton Bowl), Orlando (Citrus Bowl) and Atlanta (Chick-fil-A Bowl) are interested in joining the BCS. There are no current openings, but membership is always being evaluated. A playoff could compel the commissioners to add a fifth bowl.

• Contingency plans to move the Sugar Bowl again in case of a major storm again were discussed. The easiest solution would be moving the game on a temporary basis to Atlanta. That's where the game was played after the 2005 season following Katrina.

• The next date of significance on the BCS calendar is early June, when SEC presidents meet in Destin, Fla. Florida president Bernie Machen has created a stir lately by calling for a playoff. However, Slive said, "I don't anticipate coming out of Destin with a definite position of the SEC."

• How badly was the SEC scarred by Auburn being left out in 2004? Slive has created a saying: "Remember Auburn."

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/10149591

The BCS needs to be destroyed, and a playoff involving 4 final teams that the Committee proposed by Machen needs to play it out. The 'corporation he proposes needs to be comprised of all the commissioners of all the D-1A conferences, not just the 6 BCS elites. The money for the playoff needs to spill down to all the conferences in some fair, formulaic way that everybody feels they can have buy in. It may still mean the MAC is at the loewer end of the totem pole, but in the end, some system of bowls that all the conference champions compete in, would create some excitement similar to the field of 64, even if it were for 'bragging rights' for some of the lower conferences.

Interesting. The according to this article, the BCS was so unattractive that ABC gave up on its rights to all games outside of the Rose Bowl in the past cycle.

Would a playoff yield more money? Of course!

Quote:The first official proposal to move to a plus-one was made not by Slive or any of the other commissioners, but by a since-retired television executive. In February 2004, at a meeting in Miami, a group of presidents from the BCS and non-BCS schools -- with the help of NCAA president Brand -- stunned officials across the sport by agreeing on their own to a revised BCS format that added a fifth bowl and loosened eligibility requirements for champions from conferences without automatic bids. (Boise State and Hawaii's berths the past two seasons were made possible by the agreement.)

Unexcited by the seemingly watered-down system, ABC senior vice president for programming Loren Matthews -- whose network's original, eight-year deal with the BCS was about to come up for renewal -- proposed an alternative plan at the BCS' meetings in Phoenix two months later involving a pure plus-one.

When BCS officials balked, Matthews, whose network had seen its ratings for the non-championship BCS games decline and claimed to have lost money on its original investment -- chose to re-up solely with the Rose Bowl, paying a reported $300 million to air the eight Rose Bowl games and two national-title games to be played in Pasadena from 2007-14. Fox stepped in to claim the rights to the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls, paying a reported $320 million for the 2007-10 games (which includes three championship games). The deal represented a meager five percent spike from what ABC had been paying.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/wr...ure/3.html

(03-07-2010 10:05 PM)fishpro12345 Wrote:  The BCS needs to be destroyed, and a playoff involving 4 final teams that the Committee proposed by Machen needs to play it out. The 'corporation he proposes needs to be comprised of all the commissioners of all the D-1A conferences, not just the 6 BCS elites. The money for the playoff needs to spill down to all the conferences in some fair, formulaic way that everybody feels they can have buy in. It may still mean the MAC is at the loewer end of the totem pole, but in the end, some system of bowls that all the conference champions compete in, would create some excitement similar to the field of 64, even if it were for 'bragging rights' for some of the lower conferences.

I like how the BCS system pits together conference champions.

Declaring one game the National Championship renders all of the other BCS games into second tier status.

The system would be better if they declared the champion after BCS bowls that way the results of each BCS bowl would factor into the decision making process.

Last year the money was distributed as following:

Non-BCS: 24 million
SEC: 22.2 million
Big Ten: 22.2 million
PAC-10: 17.7 million
Big East: 17.7 million
Big XII: 17.7 million
ACC: 17.7 million
FCS: 1.8 million
ND: 1.3 million
Army/Navy: 200,000


The Non-BCS got the biggest paycheck but represents 50 schools so that is really only 480,000 per non-BCS school vs. 2 million per SEC school.

With realignment out there, it will be interesting to see whether there becomes pressure to require a BCS conference to have 12 members.

For example:

Big Ten to 14: Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri
PAC10 to 12: Colorado, Texas A&M
Big XII back to 12: Colorado St, BYU, Utah, TCU, New Mexico

Can the Big East then afford to sit then at only 8 members? How about ND?

ACC to 14: ND, Pitt
Big E to 12: Temple, ECU, Memphis, UCF, and Buffalo

Then where does this leave everyone else?

MWC to 12: UTEP, Boise, Fresno, Nevada, Utah St, NMSU, SJSU, Idaho

CUSA to 12: North Texas, La Tech, FIU, MTSU

MAC to 12: WKU

Then the FBS landscape is down to 9 conferences. Is it then time to give everyone an autobid?

Add to BCS:

Cotton Bowl (Big XII host)
Capital One (Big East host)
Peach Bowl (CUSA host)
Motor City (MAC host)

8 bowl BCS rotation, top 16 teams, every conference ensured an autobid. Conferences like the MAC and CUSA would never get more than 1 team in a BCS bowl under this system but they would solidly have a major bowl to play for.

BTW, the Sunday afternoon USA-Can. hockey game had better ratings than the BCS Championship game this year which was on in weekday prime time.

There is decreasing interest in post-holiday exhibition college football. Those games that aren't played until folks are back to work and school in January are a bad idea.

There is a recommendation in the NCAAs to slow the migration of schools from D2 to D1 and from FBS to FCS.

It will require those programs willing to move up in class to have a prior invite by a conference.

This will make in extremely difficult for schools to make the move from D1 to D2. I can't think of many D2's moving up that would be perceived as value added to D1 conferences.

What is going to happen in the FBS/FCS migration is that without new schools moving up as independents, every realignment by the BCS will trickle down to the non-BCS leagues automatically.

This will reduce almost inevitably the WAC and SBC down to the bare minimum required schools, and they'll be forced to expand with FCS schools but they'll have the luxury of picking what FCS schools they want because the only way up for them would be to join a conference.

I expect then you'll see UTSA and Tex St in the WAC, Georgia St, Jax St in the SBC when they need to reload.

It really hurts the Delaware, Montana, James Madison type of programs with small markets and distant from the footprint.

The MAC would be best to use its power and keep the MVC/CAA schools out to maintain its recruiting advantage.

The MAC has compact geography and it would be a mistake to mess that up.

As I outlined in a realignment speculation post on one of my sites, if the Big 10 goes nuclear with expansion, the Big East no longer meets the needs of the BCS.

It has never been about crowning a champion but rather a way to maximize revenue given the no playoff mandate of the presidents. We lost our shot at a system killing meltdown when Texas beat Nebraska.

I hate plus one but I think plus one is the sole hope for ever getting a real playoff.

(04-07-2010 08:15 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  As I outlined in a realignment speculation post on one of my sites, if the Big 10 goes nuclear with expansion, the Big East no longer meets the needs of the BCS.

The common rumor is the Big Ten will expand to 14/16 going East.

If the BTen goes to 14 (ND, Rut, BC), the BE will ultimately lose 2 schools (1 to BTen, 1 to ACC)

If the BTen goes to 16 (ND, Rut, BC, SU, MD), the BE will ultimately lose 4 schools (2 BTen, 2 ACC)

If the BE reloads with Memphis, Temple, TCU, East Carolina to go along with UC, UL, USF, WVU there will probably be enough muscle there to maintain a BCS bid.

Think about it this way, if there is discussion centered around giving the MWC a BCS bid and TCU, BYU, Utah is pretty much all they have than the Big East has a very good chance at retaining its BCS bid since 1. it already has it, it would be political to drop the BE, 2. They would be taking TCU over from the MWC, further strengthening their position for the sixth BCS conference.

(04-05-2010 11:04 AM)Airport KC Wrote:  There is a recommendation in the NCAAs to slow the migration of schools from D2 to D1 and from FBS to FCS.

It will require those programs willing to move up in class to have a prior invite by a conference.

This will make in extremely difficult for schools to make the move from D1 to D2. I can't think of many D2's moving up that would be perceived as value added to D1 conferences.

It is unlikely that this new rule willl hold up if a school like UTSA, which plans to move to FBS as an independent, were to challenge it in court. FBS football would essentially become a cartel, which could potentially violate antitrust laws. Here's a simple wikipedia definition:

"Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion (also called the cartel agreement) is to increase individual members' profits by reducing competition."

It is one thing to have standards for FBS membership, but those standards most likely need to be applied equally to new and existing members to hold up in court. However, transforming FBS to an invitation-only cartel creates an absolute barrier of entry to new competitors, which will be difficult for the NCAA to defend. The NCAA's case would be further weakened by the fact that the intent of the rule is to limit competition for the financial benefit of cartel members. I fully expect that the NCAA will recognize the weakness of its position, and will implement a process by which to apply for exemption. The exemption rule will probably require new FBS members to make a good faith effort to obtain conference membership, and will be enforced as rigorously as the current attendance rules.

And before someone points to the BCS as a cartel, stop and consider the differences. While aspects of the BCS are clearly flawed and unethical, the BCS does allow competition for the BCS title. While the odds may be slim, a school like Boise State or TCU does have a shot at the title. Sure the odds are stacked against the little guys, but that is true in any industry. Consider a start-up software company competing with Microsoft. It's tough, but it is also possible.

The new FBS rule is different. It forbids new entrants to the market from even having the opportunity to compete.

I don't think the rule is needed (I'll explain below) but it is designed to create consistency. Division I as a whole under the proposal will go to an invite system with a steep admission fee. The fee for Division I will likely be in excess of a million and that is reasonable because it represents the value that the schools are buying into.

Will the courts uphold the invite system as applied to Division I? Maybe. There is ample evidence that schools playing as an independent are unable to function effectively within the Division I basketball structure. With no auto bid to play for and lack of access to the basketball distribution (absent an at-large bid) they are not able to schedule effectively, recruit effectively and they are underfunded.

Now as to FBS. Invitation only results in no financial benefit for existing FBS members as far as shared revenue goes. The only shared revenue is the BCS agreement which is not an NCAA entity. It does however limit output and keep game guarantee costs higher by reducing inventory. The schools hurt by those higher prices though are a majority of the membership and a majority of the conferences. The rule is in reality a price support to assure that the AQ leagues continue to have a supply of viable FBS opponents. A drop in game guarantees makes it more difficult for the other five leagues to continue to afford to produce supply. Courts likely would say "I don't care" and find that to not be compelling. It could also follow the findings in Mid-South Grizzlies v. NFL and conclude that exclusion of a number of larger viable institutions creates greater potential for competition by preventing FBS from locking up every market containing a large institution with a good fan base and large facilities.

The thing is, the rule isn't really needed. Consider the criteria for FBS membership.
First there are rules that you can make if you have the money. Sponsor 16 sports, award 200 athletic scholarships, award the minimum number of football scholarships (roughly 79), average 15,000 paid attendance once every two years.

Then there are the rules that require help.

Play at least 9 and no more than 12 games. At least 60% of games must be against FBS members. That means at least 6 if playing the minimum 9 games or 10 games, 7 on an 11 game schedule, and 8 on a 12 game schedule. This is reachable if you aren't interested in playing at home.

Play at least 5 home games and of them, four must be against FBS members, one can be against an FCS that awards an average of 70 football scholarships or another FBS. While not impossible to meet as an independent, since 1987 when Akron moved to I-A, no school has ever played four I-A/FBS opponents at home in moving to I-A/FBS without being in a conference.

To me this makes the bona fide invite superfluous because the odds of achieving this are slim for a school wishing to transition. However, it provides an excellent justification for the rule. Until the big revamp in 2004, schools in transition had to demonstrate to the NCAA they had contracts for enough games to satisfy the 60% rule. Over the past decade scheduling 5 and 10 years out has become uncommon and broken contracts more common so the rule was deleted as impractical. Requiring a conference invitation essentially substitutes for that by requiring potential members to demonstrate that they can in fact comply with the schedule requirements.

This actually brings me around to what I would do if I were sitting in the Big 10 or SEC commissioner's chair.

The NCAA has become a large social program with all the different programs (playfair, etc) and as a revenue entity is a re-distribution program. Remember the six AQ leagues could break away and get nearly the same dollars as the NCAA makes. The difference being that enforcement overhead could be slashed dramatically dealing with such a smaller group of schools and money would be used to sponsor 30-35 championship events instead of the 80+ currently.

I'd form a corporation and with each FBS conference "contributing" to the corporation as initial equity the right for the corporation to select the leagues members for post-season play in events run by the corporation. The number of shares of stock would be determined by the value of that right. Based on BCS distribution and NCAA Tournament distribution that would put roughly 20% of the stock in the hands of the MAC, WAC, MWC, C-USA, and Sun Belt and the remaining 80% in the hands of the other six AQ leagues.

If you want to join the corporation you have two choice:
1. You can be a qualified buyer, ie., you have to be a conference made up of at least 8 schools, those 8 have to each sponsor 16 sports, award 200 scholies, award at least 79 scholarships in football, etc., the FBS requirements, with a waiver for schedule but must comply with schedule to remain a qualified owner. Then you have to buy stock. Right now the minimum distribution for the BCS and NCAA Tournament combined is $2 million annually so with most of the overhead and other distributions removed you are looking at an income stream in the $3 million to $5 million range for Sun Belt / MAC level conference. Figure four times that for stock price and you are talking about $12 million to $20 million to buy in at that level. Assuming someone liked round numbers and 100 shares were issued initially, the Sun Belt / MAC level would be four shares. You might be able to buy in for $3 million to $5 million and only get one share (I suspect these numbers are low). If you can't afford that upfront, you call the various conferences to buy one of their shares. Maybe one of them will sell you a share and finance the deal. You pay $700,000 a year out of your revenue over 10 years to buy that share.

2. The second way in is to be invited to join a league that is already a shareholder.

The corporation divides out money based on performance in revenue producing events (ie. units which might be the same $200,000 per game played in the men's basketball over the past six years, or as little as $1,000 for each baseball game played). Remaining profit distributed as dividends based on the number of outstanding shares.

Do it with just the 11 FBS leagues and you have around 122 football members and around 132 basketball members.

There is no illegal cartel, each participant has made an equity contribution and future members have to buy that equity if they are a qualified buyer and the qualifications are reasonable to insure the product. This model has been upheld before Mid-South Grizzlies v. NFL.

Talk of how ND's stature within the BCS structure is in decline and discussion on how the non-BCS needs to move forward with a shared autobid:

Quote:Notre Dame has had little, if anything to gripe about regarding its position with the BCS. Though the Fighting Irish have fallen behind several of their major-conference counterparts on the field, they remain an equal in the BCS boardroom.

The school no longer receives a full BCS share, as it did when it reached the Fiesta Bowl in 2001 and 2005, but Notre Dame is guaranteed $1.3 million in years it does not make a BCS bowl. And if and when the Irish return to glory, a $4.5 million BCS payout will be waiting, one they won't have to share.

Despite nine consecutive bowl losses and only one top-10 finish since 1993, Notre Dame has, for the most part, seen its good teams reach a choice destination. Of the four Irish teams that qualified for BCS selection since the system's inception, only the 2002 squad didn't end up in a BCS bowl.

"We certainly have had our fair share of access, despite the fact that we have not had a great competitive run," Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White said. "It's fair to say the structure has been most accommodating to the needs and interests of Notre Dame.

"It's exactly what we signed up for. No surprises."

Non-BCS schools might not be as content with the BCS setup as Notre Dame, but things have improved dramatically during the past four seasons. After no non-BCS team reached a BCS bowl for the first six years, Utah earned an at-large berth to the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and stomped Pitt to complete a perfect season.

The Utes did it the hard way, finishing in the top six of the final BCS standings to earn automatic selection. The path for the non-BCS bloc became easier in 2006 when the BCS changed its rules, allowing those teams to automatically qualify if they finished in the top 12 of the final BCS standings. Had the top-12 rule been in place from the start, five other non-BCS teams would have earned BCS bowl berths, including two undefeated squads (Tulane 1998 and Marshall 1999).

Boise State capitalized on the new rule in 2006, finishing eighth in the BCS standings and earning a berth in the Fiesta Bowl. The college football world was thankful as the Broncos and Oklahoma played one of the greatest games in the sport's history. Another WAC school busted the BCS last season as Hawaii, despite a diluted schedule, went to the Sugar Bowl.

"The biggest plus has been the guaranteed access slipping from six to 12," Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson said. "It gives people a real chance and people have taken advantage."

Despite the recent success, non-BCS teams are still hurt by semantics.

"The labeling that has come with the BCS is an unintended consequence, but it's out there," Thompson said. "Either you're BCS or you're not. You can say 'not,' you can say 'without automatic qualification,' label it however you want.

"That's a real frustration."

The gap could be bridged, Thompson said, by adding a seventh guaranteed BCS bowl spot for a non-BCS team every year. The spot could be decided in a playoff between top non-BCS teams -- perhaps the champions from the Mountain West, WAC, Conference USA and Sun Belt -- or given to the non-BCS team ranked highest in the final BCS standings.

Thompson understands why commissioners from the big six would oppose such an idea, especially with non-BCS teams already qualifying for BCS bowls, but he thinks it's important to push for guaranteed access. Playoff proposals are nice, but Thompson hasn't seen one that has a guaranteed spot for a non-BCS team.

"Can [a non-BCS team] play on the field? Do they look like a BCS automatic qualifying participant? Do they sell 25,000 tickets? The answer to all those is yes," Thompson said. "We're traveling, we're bringing something to the enterprise of college football. … I would love to see, minimally, one of the 54 of us playing every year in one of those five bowl games."

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3406481

MWC Commish on Obama's playoff plan...

Quote:Craig Thompson is commissioner of the league largely considered the best outside of the BCS conferences. The Mountain West has as many teams ranked in the AP top 25 as the ACC (three) and one more than the Big East. Utah could clinch its second BCS bowl in four years with a victory Saturday against BYU. However, the Mountain West does not have an automatic berth for its champion.

"I guess my question for the president-elect is how are the eight (teams) determined?" he said. "If it's the six automatic qualifiers and two at-large, no, thumbs down. If it's the final eight in the BCS rankings, thumbs up."

Utah is No. 7 in the current BCS standings and would be selected in Thompson's "final eight" model. It probably wouldn't be selected as an at-large team in an eight-team playoff that included six automatic qualifiers.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/11113859

The BCS as designed is leaving a lot of money on the table.

Current markets of LA (Rose), Phoenix (Fiesta). New Orleans (Sugar), and Miami (Orange) could be improved upon.

It would make sense I think to add New York (Pinstripe), Dallas (Cotton), Atlanta (Peach) among a few other markets to increase the overall value.

Give every conference an automatic bid to the system provided they have 12 teams.

Just great of you to post these 2008 articles like they are current news.

(05-31-2010 08:05 PM)DICK Wrote:  Just great of you to post these 2008 articles like they are current news.

I'm covering the older news articles that are still relavent as I'm building the contemporary case. There isn't that much written on the subject lately but the ideas are going to be used going forward in BCS planning.

Then I think it would be reasonable to expect you to preface the article with something like "even though these articles were written in 2008, they are still relevant as I think they indicate BCS thinking on this subject."