(04-29-2021 10:03 PM)jedclampett Wrote: (04-29-2021 05:13 PM)hammannja Wrote: Agree on both points. If an expanded play-off waters down the prestige of the Rose Bowl, which it very well may, both the Big Ten and the Pac-12 will have two competing internal agendas even among their own membership, but will almost certainly vote together when it comes to that.
Again, I grew up in the Big Ten. I know it inside and out. The idea that anything like an expanded CFP playoff is going to threaten the prestige of the Rose Bowl is even more absurd than the idea that the PAC-12 will defend the "prestige" of the Rose Bowl even if it has to sacrifice itself to do so.
The truth is that the prestige of the Rose Bowl doesn't have to be defended, and no one could possibly defend it if they tried to, either.
The Rose Bowl is like the Olympic Games. It stands head and shoulders above all these petty little disputes.
People try to pretend that the CFP Championship game is more important than the Rose Bowl, but they've got it completely backwards - - the Rose Bowl is real, and it always has been. In comparison, the CFP is phony and pathetic, and the PAC-12 schools know that.
Give me back the days when we had four major bowl games, and people argued about who the true champion. That was a lot more fun and interesting than all this ridiculous money bu$ine$$.
Perhaps by using the word "prestige," I wasn't accurately conveying my point.
Before the College Football Playoff, there was the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Before the BCS, there was the Bowl Alliance and the Bowl Coalition. The first two formats did not include the Rose Bowl and the Rose Bowl (along with the Big Ten and Pac-12) joined when the BCS was formed. So the Big Ten and Pac-12 have a history of prioritizing the Rose Bowl game over any notion of some sort of national championship determination.
Today, the Rose Bowl is an $80 million per year contract bowl from which the Big Ten and the Pac-12 share the annual payouts. The Sugar Bowl is the only other $80 million contract bowl. When these two bowls are not semi-final bowls, these conferences get this pay-out for whatever teams they put in this bowl. If I remember correctly, the first year of the play-off contracts, the "pay-offs" for the play-off bowls were $80 million.
So, I am not suggesting that either the Big Ten or the Pac-12 is going to do anything against their interest. What I am suggesting is that, from a monetary standpoint, these two conferences already each get what I will euphemistically refer to as a "play-off share" even if neither conference gets a team in the actual play-off. And if they make the actual play-offs, and I don't presently remember exactly how this money works, but in essence, they would get another share. But this is a euphemistic statement because it is a contract bowl, permitting the two conferences to negotiate whatever deal they want for it.
From a monetary standpoint, when I refer to "watering down," a big part of what I am referring to is the annual pay-outs that the Big Ten and the Pac-12 get from their participation in the Rose Bowl.
By the way, I live in Minnesota and was born and raised here. However, I probably wouldn't know any of these facts if I were not a Houston alumni and therefore able to see the way these things are set up from both perspectives, that of the 800-lb gorilla conference and the upstart team and conference.