https://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1758834

Quote:"I think the perceived bias of the ACC in general, [with] Florida State falling to No. 4 in the rankings and still being undefeated and being [No.] 3 at the end of the season … a one-loss ACC team or two-loss ACC team is going to have a hard time breaking that top four," Gruters said. "I think the top ACC team over the next four or five years, we're going to be in that [No.] 5 to 8 category. And we're going to be on the outside looking in."

Gruters then urged Wilcox to encourage the ACC to push for an expansion of the new playoff system - from four to eight teams. He said that was the only way, "to guarantee an ACC team will have a shot at winning the national championship each year."

A few minutes later, after the discussion turned to finances, Burr raised a topic that he described as the "800-pound gorilla" in the room - conference television networks and the money they can generate for member institutions.

"All of the Big Five is going to have one except for us if we don't get something moving soon," Burr said. "And that's a major revenue source."

Quote:Whether or not the league gets its just due, Swofford said he doesn't envision a scenario where the college playoff expands from four to eight teams - at least not in the near future.

"I don't think there's any significant support for expanding the playoff at this point in time, particularly at the presidential level," he said. "The feedback that we are getting is that the vast majority of individuals that make these decisions are completely supportive of the four teams at this point in time. And I would expect that to hold true through this 12-year contract in all probability. That remains to be seen, but there does not seem to be much momentum at all for expanding from four to eight."

The CFP's going to expand. Period. Far too much money left on the table for it to NOT expand...

(04-20-2015 04:31 PM)Rabbit_in_Red Wrote:  The CFP's going to expand. Period. Far too much money left on the table for it to NOT expand...

While I agree, it took way longer than needed for the BCS to finally morph into the CFP. The CFP decision was made and announced in June 2012. Did they really need to wait until after the 2014 season to implement the CFP? No. But they did wait.

We could see an expanded CFP announced by 2022 or 2023, but I will be very surprised if the CFP actually implements any expansion before the expiration of the current 12-year deal.

Eh...maybe. The hard part's over, though. The BCS is dead and playoffs are here. From this point forward, it's just tweaking in order to maximize profits.

(04-20-2015 05:03 PM)Rabbit_in_Red Wrote:  Eh...maybe. The hard part's over, though. The BCS is dead and playoffs are here. From this point forward, it's just tweaking in order to maximize profits.

And, much of the leadership that prevented and delayed the CFP is either out (PAC 10-Hanson) or has changed philosophy (B1G-Delany). So, you could be right that agreement to add a round of games to maximize CFP profits is more easily reached.

I think you'll see the P5 get some kind of guarantee that their champs will be in. That would make their CCG's defacto playoff games, thus making them more valuable to the conference.

(04-20-2015 05:39 PM)Rabbit_in_Red Wrote:  I think you'll see the P5 get some kind of guarantee that their champs will be in. That would make their CCG's defacto playoff games, thus making them more valuable to the conference.

Also, if there's an 8 team playoff with P5 autobids, then the football divisions are not going away.

When the prize for winning your division is a win-and-you're-in game for a CFP berth, then every game that impacts a division race is meaningful, and as you mention the market value of the conference title games will increase by quite a bit.

(04-20-2015 05:54 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 05:39 PM)Rabbit_in_Red Wrote:  I think you'll see the P5 get some kind of guarantee that their champs will be in. That would make their CCG's defacto playoff games, thus making them more valuable to the conference.

Also, if there's an 8 team playoff with P5 autobids, then the football divisions are not going away.

When the prize for winning your division is a win-and-you're-in game for a CFP berth, then every game that impacts a division race is meaningful, and as you mention the market value of the conference title games will increase by quite a bit.

I don't see how an 8-team playoff ensures the future of divisions. You can still have a "meaningful race" to be the "top 2" in a single division/division-less setup. It's no different than the wild card battles in professional sports.

(04-20-2015 06:02 PM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 05:54 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 05:39 PM)Rabbit_in_Red Wrote:  I think you'll see the P5 get some kind of guarantee that their champs will be in. That would make their CCG's defacto playoff games, thus making them more valuable to the conference.

Also, if there's an 8 team playoff with P5 autobids, then the football divisions are not going away.

When the prize for winning your division is a win-and-you're-in game for a CFP berth, then every game that impacts a division race is meaningful, and as you mention the market value of the conference title games will increase by quite a bit.

I don't see how an 8-team playoff ensures the future of divisions. You can still have a "meaningful race" to be the "top 2" in a single division/division-less setup. It's no different than the wild card battles in professional sports.

I could see Boise State being in the discussion down the road. I read their tv ratings for beating Arizona and it is completely amazing for a fact a school from a small state that could attract that many viewers. As I see it, there are money being left on the table for not including some schools in the G5 conferences not to be part of the P5 schools. Does anybody really want to see a 6-6 school from a P5 conference or an undefeated Boise State or other schools with winning markets? The ratings show that the G5 winning schools get more people to watch than a P5 school with a losing record. Adding a Chinderella into the playoff could bring in more viewers. I could see a future that conferences could expand more to start including the best from the G5 conferences which means that expand to 8 might work. I could see schools like Marshall, Colorado State and Boise State in the mix down the road.

Disagree about money on the table. There is money on the table for the short term, but adding a playoff round will take money away from the regular season. You don't get an expanded playoff without automatic bids for the power 5 and that will remove a lot of drama from the regular season, especially in September and October. That will filter down into reduced regular season contracts eventually and over the long term, I think that will be a bigger deal than the money from an extra round.

As for the ACC. Bias wasn't the problem this year. The problem was Florida State had a ton of issues that everyone could see and was only where it was because it was undefeated. You take the 2013 Florida State team and they don't have the same issues at all.

1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Disagree about money on the table. There is money on the table for the short term, but adding a playoff round will take money away from the regular season. You don't get an expanded playoff without automatic bids for the power 5 and that will remove a lot of drama from the regular season, especially in September and October. That will filter down into reduced regular season contracts eventually and over the long term, I think that will be a bigger deal than the money from an extra round.

As for the ACC. Bias wasn't the problem this year. The problem was Florida State had a ton of issues that everyone could see and was only where it was because it was undefeated. You take the 2013 Florida State team and they don't have the same issues at all.

Even TCU could beat Florida State. The issue was that Florida State almost lost to 2 teams who were almost upset by Georgia Southern.

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Disagree about money on the table. There is money on the table for the short term, but adding a playoff round will take money away from the regular season. You don't get an expanded playoff without automatic bids for the power 5 and that will remove a lot of drama from the regular season, especially in September and October. That will filter down into reduced regular season contracts eventually and over the long term, I think that will be a bigger deal than the money from an extra round.

May be. But the expanded playoff could also make more games more meaningful - which has the exact opposite result - way more drama in many more games throughout the regular season. This means better TV ratings for those meaningful regular season games.

So, it could improve both the CFP money and the regular season contracts in the long term.

I agree that there is a breaking point where you remove regular season drama, but I personally don't think it is 8 teams. In fact, IMO, 8 teams gets you closer to top of the bell curve.

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)BE4neva Wrote:  1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

So you dont think that Syracuse, who absolutely dominates Upstate NY for College fb and bb, will not be able to help an Acc Network in NYS? There are at least 7 million sets of eyeballs in Upstate NY, and Syracuse by far is the favorite team, and has a good following in NYC. And since you are grouping SU with small privates, you should know that Syracuse is a very large private university that is as large or larger than some state schools and flagships, and is twice as large as BC and Wake, put together.

Syracuse is not a state school, but with the fans and media attention it gets in NYS, it may as well be. The state wants SU to continue to be an economic driver, which is why it was willing to give the university $250 million to build a new Dome. Most private schools dont receive this kind of support from its State.

(04-20-2015 07:20 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)BE4neva Wrote:  1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

So you dont think that Syracuse, who absolutely dominates Upstate NY for College fb and bb, will not be able to help an Acc Network in NYS? There are at least 7 million sets of eyeballs in Upstate NY, and Syracuse by far is the favorite team, and has a good following in NYC. And since you are grouping SU with small privates, you should know that Syracuse is a very large private university that is as large or larger than some state schools and flagships, and is twice as large as BC and Wake, put together.

Syracuse is not a state school, but with the fans and media attention it gets in NYS, it may as well be. The state wants SU to continue to be an economic driver, which is why it was willing to give the university $250 million to build a new Dome. Most private schools don't receive this kind of support from its State.

The question is could they survive in the ACC? I am looking at the FCOA for the ACC and their tv contract? I see some of them may not survive in the ACC. What that Notre Dame article said about all this that there could be a group of privates that could band together and formed a conference for survival. What would you think about this new all sports conference?

West:
Notre Dame
Tulsa
Rice
SMU
Tulane
Northwestern

East:
Miami, Florida
Boston College
Temple
Vanderbilt
Syracuse
Duke
Wake Forest

As I am seeing this, the Big 12 looks more stable than the ACC because of the FCOA issues. Could Syracuse stay in the ACC and be able to keep up? They might be able to, but the others who are small may not no matter the tv contracts are.

(04-20-2015 07:29 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 07:20 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)BE4neva Wrote:  1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

So you dont think that Syracuse, who absolutely dominates Upstate NY for College fb and bb, will not be able to help an Acc Network in NYS? There are at least 7 million sets of eyeballs in Upstate NY, and Syracuse by far is the favorite team, and has a good following in NYC. And since you are grouping SU with small privates, you should know that Syracuse is a very large private university that is as large or larger than some state schools and flagships, and is twice as large as BC and Wake, put together.

Syracuse is not a state school, but with the fans and media attention it gets in NYS, it may as well be. The state wants SU to continue to be an economic driver, which is why it was willing to give the university $250 million to build a new Dome. Most private schools don't receive this kind of support from its State.

The question is could they survive in the ACC? I am looking at the FCOA for the ACC and their tv contract? I see some of them may not survive in the ACC. What that Notre Dame article said about all this that there could be a group of privates that could band together and formed a conference for survival. What would you think about this new all sports conference?

West:
Notre Dame
Tulsa
Rice
SMU
Tulane
Northwestern

East:
Miami, Florida
Boston College
Temple
Vanderbilt
Syracuse
Duke
Wake Forest

As I am seeing this, the Big 12 looks more stable than the ACC because of the FCOA issues. Could Syracuse stay in the ACC and be able to keep up? They might be able to, but the others who are small may not no matter the tv contracts are.

The answer to your question is YES! You may be surprised to know that Syracuse has the third largest athletic Dept in the Acc right behind FSU, and Louisville.

(04-20-2015 07:20 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)BE4neva Wrote:  1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

So you dont think that Syracuse, who absolutely dominates Upstate NY for College fb and bb, will not be able to help an Acc Network in NYS? There are at least 7 million sets of eyeballs in Upstate NY, and Syracuse by far is the favorite team, and has a good following in NYC. And since you are grouping SU with small privates, you should know that Syracuse is a very large private university that is as large or larger than some state schools and flagships, and is twice as large as BC and Wake, put together.

Syracuse is not a state school, but with the fans and media attention it gets in NYS, it may as well be. The state wants SU to continue to be an economic driver, which is why it was willing to give the university $250 million to build a new Dome. Most private schools dont receive this kind of support from its State.

I think Cuse definetly does carry update NY. The problem is this. The other power conferences network wise are going to show hockey, baseball, soccer and some lax it seems. Those will be the primary fillers. Cuse bball is a top 15 all time program and while the next couple years will be a bit ruff they are still what they are. When Cuse has a big bball game it's going to get ESPN or some type of national channel. It's a high tier game. So that doesn't help the network. Cuse doesn't play baseball or hockey. So all Cuse brings to a network is the bottom half of its home schedule of basketball games. It's women's basketball as far as I know isn't a major but I could be wrong? I think only a few are viewer gains like ND, UConn and Stanford.

Yes I realize the ACC doesn't have hockey but the point is where is the content to buy becuase you want to watch it?
It lacks content. And Cuse lacks more than other schools.

So upstate NY is going to buy the mythical ACCNetwork to watch 5-10 games vs non top teams mostly and some of those will be home games people will attend vs tv watch?

I don't see it. Cuse gets 30k for basketball games and only 40k for football. How is it you don't get 70k for football with such a huge number population wise to draw from? Yes I know your stadium is like 50k size wise. Seriously though. Do you come even close to really carrying that population?

Here is what I think is a fair example.

The B1G is going to show double digit live football games in the fall on the B1GN. They are going to show a mix of high and low quality bball all season. They are going to show live soccer games of mixed quality, live top ranked volley ball games, live quality hockey, live women's bball with mixed quality, live lax, live baseball and live softball.

What is the ACCN going to show? Minus volley ball and hockey the same let's say? ESPN is going to cherry pick bball games every week as they please becuase they own everything. Of what's left Cuse isn't worthy in women's bball so the ACCN is going to show ND, LVille, Duke, UNC non national games as they please. Cuse lax will surely get play. They don't play baseball. I have no clue if they play softball and if so I doubt they get time as a small brand. How about soccer? No clue.

UNC is going to be a network monster. UVA is a network monster. You need to be top at several other sports and have the brand/base that cares about it. Cuse may live in a state wi a large population, but they don't care. If they did you would have a stadium full or a larger stadium on par with other institutions your size in the college football world. There's a reason you get lumped together with the schools you do. My 2 cents. You can't be playing big time college football and basketball for so long and have just this to show for it. It's like a missed opportunity of epic levels or the answer is simple, the market/base isn't what people say it is in update NY. Schools like UCF and UConn have been playing football for 10 years and have gotten 40k in seats pretty quickly. What happens if they had 30 years to build that base? Cuse is what it is. Should have gone SUNY last decade when offered.

(04-20-2015 07:10 PM)YNot Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  Disagree about money on the table. There is money on the table for the short term, but adding a playoff round will take money away from the regular season. You don't get an expanded playoff without automatic bids for the power 5 and that will remove a lot of drama from the regular season, especially in September and October. That will filter down into reduced regular season contracts eventually and over the long term, I think that will be a bigger deal than the money from an extra round.

May be. But the expanded playoff could also make more games more meaningful - which has the exact opposite result - way more drama in many more games throughout the regular season. This means better TV ratings for those meaningful regular season games.

So, it could improve both the CFP money and the regular season contracts in the long term.

I agree that there is a breaking point where you remove regular season drama, but I personally don't think it is 8 teams. In fact, IMO, 8 teams gets you closer to top of the bell curve.

I know Frank the Tank used to write that he though 8 is below the breaking point too.

I'm on very much on the opposite side of that and think 6 or 8 is definitely the breaking point and once you are there, the effect of going all the way to 16 is minimal.

At 8 teams, the champions of all 5 of the major conferences are in. That fact leads to several things I think will undermine the conferences elsewhere.

1. If you are an ACC fan, what happens in the PAC-12 is almost irrelevant. Same goes for the rest. The 3 at larges are still up, but the primary means of getting there is through the automatic bid and casual fans are not going to turn in as much to see an at large possibility of an 8 team playoff as they are for the primary 4. Maybe the last week or two is just as exciting, but 90% of the season isn't. Imagine you have #2 USC playing #10 Oregon in October. It's a big game still sure and could have play off implications. It does not however have anywhere near the same meaning as the two will likely be meeting in the conference championship anyway and a bid will still be on the line then.

2. All those important early non-conference games lose a ton of meaning as do the other bowls. If every major conference is in, it matters a heck of a lot less how the rest of your conference is perceived. Heck, it's actually better if the rest of your conference sucks, loses games that help with recruiting, etc. If you are getting an automatic bid with a conference championship, you don't need your conference to be seen as good to throw off challengers nearly as much.

Shorter answer: I think conference pride takes a major decline and there are fewer big national games that actually seem to matter for 2 and half months of the season.

(04-20-2015 06:52 PM)BE4neva Wrote:  1- it's funny to watch ACC fans talk so much noise 24/7 and then every once in a while a sobering article or thread appears where the truth is talked about. The network is a unicorn and the league is weak. You can't have multiple schools at the bottom of your league that both stink on the field and in fan base/brand size. You can have one school like that or several with one of those issues. But not a combo of both for prolonged periods of time. Wake, BC, Cuse are never going to help the league with a network or a playoff invite. Even in good years on the field the base/brand are not enough. It's that simple.

2- when the CFP expands, it won't. It will actually be the power 4 conferences(b12 or ACC lives...) who decide that the berth to that should be settled by there conference ship game.

So imagine this. In order to be eligible for the CFP you need to have at least 16 schools in your conference and can have as many as 20. Pods are a internet unicorn but large geographic divisions are a winner. Each division winner gets a birth to its conference ship game. Winner goes to the CFP. So now, every regular season conference game means something to get that bid. OOC means less towards rankings but more towards how the ultimate winner of each conference getting seeded 1-4 for the CFP.

Dude Cuse is not a weak brand...

Who leads the country in Hoops Attendance? Who is one on the largest draws out there in hoops with one of the top traveling fanbases?

Who has the #1 Lacrosse Brand...oh yeah...perfect for the ACC Network

They play top level soccer , field hockey....if the network comes they need to add either hockey or baseball. I think hockey will be better. The ACC network could contract to get HE or similar league to be shown on the network.

Cuse needs to work on FB...but 15 years of mostly crap will kill of attendance.

(04-20-2015 06:58 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  Even TCU could beat Florida State. The issue was that Florida State almost lost to 2 teams who were almost upset by Georgia Southern.

ALMOST.

Here's what DID happen: TCU lost to a team that lost to UCF in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl.

SMACK FAIL.