(10-02-2014 10:28 PM)ohio1317 Wrote: I agree that making the Wildcard game one game for baseball was a very good approach. It accomplished two things, a) it created two compelling games, b) it made the divisional races in the regular season more meaningful. That was because of things fundamental to baseball, namely: home field advantage not being that huge and thus the old wildcard not much different than winning the division and the difficulty of having a winner take all game otherwise.
Conference tournaments for football are a very different animal and mainly for one reason and that's that we already have big meaningful nationally relevent regular season college football games. Now I'll grant it's possible we end up going this way eventually and maybe there is more money that way, but my money would be on it costing rather than making the conferences money in the long run (especially if it required expansion).
Let's suppose I'm wrong though and we go to semi-finals though. I'll guarantee one thing. They will not have 4 divisions with the winners of each going. No conference will take the risk of having the best two in one division and having another division with a team that might well have an overall loosing record go. What this will ultimately do though is destroy the stakes we see in the regularly season. If the top 4 teams are in the conference playoff, then the stakes just aren't there for enough regular season games. How many people on the west coast really care about who is #4 or #5 in the ACC, etc?
I don't see how they lose money through expansion. Every expansion that has happened has gained money for the expanding conference. I am sorry but there is no logic in the opposing statement. Expansion happens for money, guaranteed money, so to say opposite is just "farting in the wind" so to speak.
Now, your talking point about divisions and leading into a tournament is very valid. I will grant you all those points as being logical and feasible. Where I differ in opinion is that it is a bad thing to have one division winner be garbage. That is simply a way of manipulating the championship game to have your conference's top team in it for sure. In the end, the best finish is for your top team to make it through the tournament anyways right?
A championship game at the end builds credibility. Well two wins instead of one builds even more.
The Big Ten and PAC both got paid 20 million by Fox for their championship games. If that game is worth 20 million then the Semifinals should be worth 15 million. Do the math, that is 50 million dollars. If I am right and we end up with 16 team conferences then that is about 3.8 million divied out per school.
I disagree completely in regards to it destroying the regular season though. Once again, I think that is your traditional bias shining through and I can respect that. That does not make you right though. Baseball's regular season has died because it is boring, long and the games are far too numerous. College football has none of those problems. The regular season games will be just as followed as they are today. ESPN will see to that.
To go even further, four team divisions mean those three games in division will be extremely valuable. You line up all three to be played at the end of the conference season and ratings will be through the roof as the race for the divisions will be up in the air until then.
This isn't hard, if I can figure it out then the extremely capable marketing folks can figure it out too. In fact, they likely already have it figured out and they talked the EXTREMELY traditional folks in Major League Baseball to follow the lead of the Network.
The secret to success in this day and age is no secret.