ken d
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RE: 64 team P4 with no Independents
(02-25-2015 02:47 PM)Artifice Wrote: (02-25-2015 12:02 PM)ken d Wrote: (02-25-2015 11:30 AM)Artifice Wrote: (02-24-2015 09:00 PM)ken d Wrote: (02-24-2015 06:00 PM)Artifice Wrote: Who said anything about giving up revenue?
If you are going to make an attempt at counterpoint, you can do it from a genuinely interested standpoint and I will respond.
If you just want to continue to post pithy, self congratulatory assumptions, then no, I will not discuss this with you.
You don't think that would cost those schools millions? They would be swapping P5 revenues for SBC money with that lineup. No network is going to be paying big bucks for schools like APP State, ODU and Charlotte playing in what is in essence a one state league. And those former P5 schools will lose millions with the big drop in attendance they would surely see. Not that it would ever happen, because nobody is going to voluntarily go from being in a P5 conference to one that weak.
First of all - see the schedule comparison. Attendance variance is unlikely. You can always expand the conferences, but at the price of losing scheduling autonomy - which was the point of leaving 5 games to the ADs.
The entire NCAA collectively bargains the TV deals. Leverage of all or none. The networks would drool over that playoff model, the same way they drool over the basketball tournament. And the model itself puts a high probability that the schools the networks want to see in the playoff are the ones that make it, while leaving a little bit of room for an annual cinderella or two - much like the hoops tournament. Great storylines all around. Fatcat TV execs handing out cigars, etc etc. Free your mind of the old model - its clouding your thinking. This was an exercise in wholesale changes. Again, its what is healthiest for the sport, not any one program, which is why I acknowledged that it will never happen. Never. Not even a chance of it. The adminstrators are in it for themselves and the fans are not fans of the sport.
Perhaps you missed my earlier thread proposing a single 72 member conference with 8 nine team divisions. I'm not locked into any way of looking at this. Where we differ is that my model includes only the schools that are competing at the highest level, and are the most attractive to the networks. Yours would require that those 72 schools share the revenue with 56 others who don't ring the bell with the networks in the media marketplace.
You believe your model is healthier for the sport, and that's a perfectly reasonable point of view to take. I don't believe that it is, and that is also perfectly reasonable. I believe that, when it comes to who the public wants to see play college football the most, the marketplace has spoken loud and clear. I'm OK with that.
Getting into a circular argument about competition though - because those 64-72 are fully reliant on the other 56-64 schools to prop them up via extra home games (both for bowl eligibility and revenues, etc), and that model cannot be sustained without those schools. That part is fact. The next part is all but certain: if those 64-72 schools try to go it alone, they will lose game revenues, experience worse records costing them bowl eligibility under the current formula, and cause the bottom feeders to become coaching revolving doors and fan interest to wane. The system you are proposing only benefits a handful of programs. To date, the G5 schools and FCS have been willing to be whipping boys for payouts. But that same pride we earlier discussed, and associated expectations, will not allow 75% of the P5 schools to supplant the G5 and FCS as the Washington Generals of that model.
So we're back to where I started about the health of the game. And competition. A moment about competition - if you love football, the game, and not just your program of choice, then you love competition in the way that the NFL experiences it. If all you want is a field of inferior budget, facilities and smaller fandoms to dominate, then you aren't a football fan. What you want better resembles an entitled aristocracy...
But in regards to the health of the game - the model I suggested, or one like it, ensures the health and viability of all the players (programs), while allowing those entrenched to keep their pride and expectations (contrary to an earlier point you made). There is certainly some give and take to be had, and I was hoping to get to this point in one reply instead of several. For instance, one concession the G5 schools could make for inclusion is home/away schedule imbalance over multiple seasons. AKA 2 for 1s or 3 out of 5 home games for the P5 schools. There are other areas to compromise as well.
I do enjoy talking about this. I have the advantage of having attended multiple schools at various levels (including a major P5 school), so I have some broader perspective. I think that most fans put their homer blinders on and don't realize that the changes they want for D1A football will hurt the sport at best, and are likely not sustainable over the long haul. Unless your goal is to whittle D1A down to about 5-10 programs (or 5-10 programs and their unwilling chewtoys). That is the eventuality of the current course.
I, too have attended multiple schools at various levels, as have many other posters on this site. Your perspective is neither unique nor unusual. I just did some quick math regarding your proposal. What I found confirms for me what I originally expected.
Your proposal would result in roughly doubling the number of games between schools now in the P5 and those in the G5. That's an additional 110 games a year of minimal interest to TV networks. And, given the overwhelming proportion of those games that are won by the P5 teams, it would reduce the number of G5 teams that qualify for bowl games (and presumably add to the number of P5s that qualify) by about 12 schools each year. That doesn't sound very healthy to me.
The reduction in inventory of attractive games would reduce the total revenue from media contracts, while dividing that revenue among twice as many teams. This plan sounds like an effort to benefit the G5 schools at the expense of P5 schools. The G5 has about half the teams in the FBS, but only about 20% of the population of college football fans. The 80% that root for the P5 are not going to be happy. That's not a recipe for success.
Unless you can come up with a way to take recruiting out of college football, and replace it with an NFL style draft, you will never alter the balance of power that now favors the P5. They didn't get that power by accident.
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64 team P4 with no Independents
![[Image: UCFTouchdown.gif]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/br-cdn/temp_images/2013/10/19/UCFTouchdown.gif)
