RE: Dodd: Division 4 is coming; non-BCS playoff a possibility
#1. Obviously he's just thinking out loud.
#2. No one will ever test whether he is right.
I know the majority will disagree with me, but I think IF the right person were to emerge to rally the G5+BYU+Army and could somehow inject them with an AFL mindset, it could be VERY successful.
Those who disagree have looked at the evidence and made an interpretation of it that is very plausible. I think there are other interpretations to the evidence.
Argument 1. Look at FCS.
OK. FCS is cost-containment football. Fewer scholarships, less staff permitted. It was initially created to provide post-season opportunities to schools lacking post-season opportunities. It was supposed to provide TV access to schools lacking TV access.
The G5 is not FCS. The G5 will match the P5 in scholarship spending and will match in whole or in part the stipend. Either sport for sport or they will do it in football and basketball and just enough women's sports to keep the lawyers at bay. G5 teams will continue to play home and home series with P5 teams. How often do FBS travel to FCS?
The G5 may lack the money of the P5 but most G5 approach athletics with the same mindset. That's not the case with FCS.
Look at the gap in bowls
Fine. Last year there were 10 G5 v. G5 bowls. Seven were played before the first P5 v. P5 bowl. The 9th was played on December 29. The 10th was the THIRTY-FOURTH BOWL OF THE SEASON. It was played the night before the BCS title game after a full Sunday of NFL football. The worst viewership for a G5 vs. G5 was 1.3 million viewers, top was just over 3 million. Despite highly recognized names, playing on poor dates and some oddball hours there were viewers for those games even with a number of G5 schools playing P5 schools. Slotted better with more at stake than just another game, there is viewership potential.
Look at the TV gap
TV wants to maximize resources. The P5 leagues are a safe ratings project. They get the prime TV slots. The rights paid the G5 reflect the fact that TV has ample prime viewing slot inventory. G5 games are just an alternative to showing poker or infomercials or the 27th re-run of some show. The price reflects how much more valuable that content is at off-peak teams and on lesser viewed channels. The G5 could draw better ratings than they currently do if slotted into prime channels at prime viewing times, but can't reliably draw what the P5 do in those slots. If those broadcast windows were available... the G5 would be paid more to fill them but those slots aren't available.
Nobody wants to watch a "runner-up" game
Not completely true. After all 33 bowl games that weren't the BCS title game nor the historic Rose Bowl drew some pretty decent numbers. The Kentucky-Robert Morris NIT game outdrew the opening round of the NCAA.
The Battle is doing it right
You can't be an orphan asking for more gruel. You have to act like Lamar Hunt and Al Davis and go to war.
You really need the right event to take place to make it really go (more on that later) but as a friend once told me. If you know life is going to hand you lemons, don't sit back and wait. Tell everyone you are making the best pie they've ever had then make that greatly anticipated lemon pie when they arrive.
Don't sit around and create a playoff because you've been formally shunted aside. Come out swinging and do it before they get a chance to stick you.
Get your Lamar Hunt to stand at the podium in New York with the five G5 commissioners and your five boldest presidents and five boldest AD's and declare war. Announce you've signed an agreement for the NCP, the National Championship Playoff, the playoff America WANTS. You have slots reserved for every conference champion with the rest of the 16 team field filled with the best at-large teams. Stare into the cameras and tell them you've sent a copy of the agreement to the SEC, Big 10, ACC, Pac-12, and Big XII but they won't give America the playoff it wants, so you are leaving the CFP for the NCP and spots are available for them should they choose to join in.
Unveil your plan.
The 8 highest seeded teams will play the first round at home. The first round will be split over two weekends. Seeds 1-4 will play the first Saturday in December. A key date because there are a maximum of 9 P5 games that can be played that day. The SEC, ACC, P12, Big 10 title games and 5 Big XII regular season games and at most 2 of those Big XII games will have any meaning. The reward of being a top 4 seed is an extra week off if you win. The second four games featuring seeds 5-8 playing at home will be the second Saturday in December when there are no games at all played at the FBS level (Army-Navy has to move).
Second round the third Saturday in December which is usually G5 v. G5 or Pac-12 v MWC bowls. The bigs don't like playing that early in bowls. The four highest remaining seeds again playing at home.
The Saturday before New Year's Day play the neutral site semi-finals, with the championship the Saturday before the CFP title game.
College football belongs on Saturday :)
The Trigger
The perfect scenario to trigger the move? Fox failing to secure the Big 10's top tier rights. ESPN isn't going to easily allow them to get away, and if ESPN has a right of refusal it would be hard for Fox to put out a number they would pay that ESPN won't match.
That leaves Fox with a purported ESPN rival sports network that lacks top-level games in college football. While they will have some top teams they won't have first pick of games. Plus they won't have the NFL.
If you can't get the top. Create your own. Buy the G5 lock, stock and barrel. Most of the G5 deals expire at the same time as the Big 10 deal. With a little insider dealing and monkeying around, you kill and reform the American and Sun Belt and all five are locked into Fox for the regular season and post-season.
A true rival league that is getting pushed hard by a major broadcast network, a major cable sports network, a network of regional sports nets, and the owner of a major recruiting network that used to draw G5 ire when from time to time a high star player might lose a star after commiting to a G5, something unlikely to happen in Fox has a vested interest.
And if they wanted my advice, for the first four or six years. I'd play the semis at one site as a double header. Ideally I'd rotate the semi and the final between St. Louis and Indianapolis. St. Louis because its near the geographic and population center of the US, Indy because its the dome without a bowl closest to the most teams and I'd dare the NCAA Executive Director to not show up for the games there because I'd tell every reporter that would listen that the failure to appear just proves the Director is the lapdog of the money elite rather than working for the fans who want a full playoff.
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2013 03:59 PM by arkstfan.)
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