First, there are 65 P-5 schools and 64 G-5 schools, if there was a scheduling change/cut, would the fan bases of the G-5 stop following their teams and still have interest in the P-5 games?

I imagine the 64 fan bases make up a large amount of TV viewership for networks, and IMO these fans would not have the same or much interest at all in the p-5 outside of playoff games.

Second, if G-5 TV viewers are removed from the current pool of TV viewers the p-5 currently has, how big of a difference do you think it will make on TV deals going forward? and would it give the G-5 real negotiation power with the TV networks? what do ya'll think about this?

I don't see it happening in the near term. NC State just announce last week the scheduling of 15 games against G5 and FCS teams out through 2023. EKU is playing NC State and UK next year and Purdue in 2016 (move from 2017).

It will never happen. The P5 schools want 7 home games. You can't do that without playing G5/FCS schools. The P5 can't get it up to 7 without playing with the unwashed.

The way to identify it as nothing but chin wagging is that most P5 conferences aren't doing anything to move in that direction.

The SEC and ACC have both recently decided to stay at eight conference games, where both have heavy reliance on both Go5 and FCS games ... if they were interested in moving in that direction, one way to increase their P5 games would be to increase their conference games.

The SEC is certainly making no move to eliminate FCS competition, and a conference where every single member takes advantage of the one-FCS-school exemption (and several take advantage of FCS to FBS transitions to play multiple schools that have been FCS schools in the past five years). The only move they announced was encouraging all of their members to play at least one P5 school OOC, something which only the two SEC Mississippi schools habitually duck.

Note that Vandy and Texas A&M are the other schools without a P5 opponent this coming year, but one is due to schedule disruption when the Vandy / Vols game was moved to the contracted date of the Vandy / Wake Forest series, and the other is due to schedule disruption following a move from the B12 to the SEC.

Instead, what you have are season ticket holders complaining that so many of their season tickets are for cupcake games, and AD's and coaches chin wagging along lines which are to the effect of "Oh, if it was up to me, SEC schools would only play power conference schools, but as long as 'they' schedule cupcakes, 'we' have to schedule cupcakes to avoid giving them the advantage of a softer schedule."

As far as the impact on the Go5, the Big 10, which is indeed moving from playing an eight game to a nine game conference schedule, it also leaning on its schools to stop scheduling FCS schools, and between schools that have been playing two P5 schools OOC moving to only playing one, and schools effectively dropping their FCS game in response to the one additional Big Ten game, the impact on total Go5 games played by the Big Ten is likely to be modest.

The push for this kind of scheduling comes from a combination of two things: Many conference games are cupcakes for the top BCS teams (OSU vs Indiana, Oregon vs Washington State, etc), and fans put more stock into name brands than reality. They play the bad BCS teams in their own conference often enough to know they're bad, but they still put credence into the BCS brand when it comes to teams from other conferences.

(08-16-2014 03:41 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  The push for this kind of scheduling comes from a combination of two things: Many conference games are cupcakes for the top BCS teams (OSU vs Indiana, Oregon vs Washington State, etc), and fans put more stock into name brands than reality. They play the bad BCS teams in their own conference often enough to know they're bad, but they still put credence into the BCS brand when it comes to teams from other conferences.

And because its coming from people out of touch with the economic realities, the talk about P5 only scheduling is just lip service to placate people (some of them big donors) complaining about it.

(08-16-2014 03:19 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  The way to identify it as nothing but chin wagging is that most P5 conferences aren't doing anything to move in that direction.

The SEC and ACC have both recently decided to stay at eight conference games, where both have heavy reliance on both Go5 and FCS games ... if they were interested in moving in that direction, one way to increase their P5 games would be to increase their conference games.

The SEC is certainly making no move to eliminate FCS competition, and a conference where every single member takes advantage of the one-FCS-school exemption (and several take advantage of FCS to FBS transitions to play multiple schools that have been FCS schools in the past five years). The only move they announced was encouraging all of their members to play at least one P5 school OOC, something which only the two SEC Mississippi schools habitually duck.

Note that Vandy and Texas A&M are the other schools without a P5 opponent this coming year, but one is due to schedule disruption when the Vandy / Vols game was moved to the contracted date of the Vandy / Wake Forest series, and the other is due to schedule disruption following a move from the B12 to the SEC.

Instead, what you have are season ticket holders complaining that so many of their season tickets are for cupcake games, and AD's and coaches chin wagging along lines which are to the effect of "Oh, if it was up to me, SEC schools would only play power conference schools, but as long as 'they' schedule cupcakes, 'we' have to schedule cupcakes to avoid giving them the advantage of a softer schedule."

As far as the impact on the Go5, the Big 10, which is indeed moving from playing an eight game to a nine game conference schedule, it also leaning on its schools to stop scheduling FCS schools, and between schools that have been playing two P5 schools OOC moving to only playing one, and schools effectively dropping their FCS game in response to the one additional Big Ten game, the impact on total Go5 games played by the Big Ten is likely to be modest.

Ohio State goes to 9 conference games as of 2016.

(08-20-2014 05:31 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  

(08-16-2014 03:19 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  ... As far as the impact on the Go5, the Big 10, which is indeed moving from playing an eight game to a nine game conference schedule, ...

Ohio State goes to 9 conference games as of 2016.

Yes, that follows from the Big Ten going to 9 conference games, and Ohio State being a Big Ten member.

If I was king of College Football...

I would decree that, in order to be eligible for the new 4-team championship playoff, a team would have had to play at least 1 team from 4 of the 5 P5 conferences. For a team that has 8 conference games, they'd have to schedule OOC games against teams from 3 other P5 conferences. They'd still have 1 game for G5 or FCS.

So those teams scheduling 8 conference games and 4 cupcakes, even if you win all the games, you can't play for the Championship.

ACC: 14 teams X 4 OOC games = 56 OOC games
B1G: 14 teams X 4 OOC games = 56 OOC games
BXII: 10 teams X 3 OOC games = 30 OOC games
SEC: 14 teams X 4 OOC games = 56 OOC games
PAC: 12 teams X 3 OOC games = 36 OOC games

Based on the number of P5 teams (minus ND) and the number of non conference games scheduled for each conference there is a maximum of 234 P5 OOC games to be played this fall, that's 234 opportunities for TV networks to broadcast a game involving a "big time" football program. However, every time two P5 teams play each other that game only counts as 1 OOC game and 1 broadcast opportunity. So, if the P5 only played each other in non conference games the number of opportunities to broadcast a game featuring a P5 team would be cut in half, from 234 to 117.

This fall there is only 32 P5 v P5 non conference games scheduled. The P5 will play 170 games vs G5 and FCS. I can't imagine any way to cut this where the P5 and the networks could leave out the non-P5 teams and make more money doing it.