(01-10-2019 02:50 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Yeah, you have to look more closely at European soccer leagues to understand how harsh relegation is, or how much the fear of relegation drives overspending. Most teams spend outlandish amounts, relative to their actual revenue, just to avoid being one of the three teams in each first division that are relegated each year. There are first division clubs that have gone bankrupt trying to keep up, and others that have been forced to sell (usually to billionaires looking for playtoys) because ownership can't keep losing so much money every year. Some teams that are relegated go into a downward spiral, where good coaches and players bail after relegation and the team drops down another division or two.

So in American college football, you want the bottom three in each league dropping down every year, ok, fine. The bottom is waaaaaaay down there. G5 fans get super excited about the idea of Rutgers or Vandy dropping down, but that's not nearly all of it. For example, a Sun Belt team that hits a rough stretch and keeps finishing in a league's bottom three could drop to FCS, then to Division II, then to Division III, then maybe to NAIA. Try raising money from boosters who were dreaming of replacing Vanderbilt in the SEC that, whoops, you had a few bad years and now you're playing Bluefield and Valley City State on your NAIA schedule. Anyone in a league with a big spender or two, even if it's not in the top division, might have to choose between spending tens of millions like Houston's big booster or dropping down a division and then another and another. Few universities have the money to play that game. Most would walk away from the game altogether. And again, even in European soccer it can seem like it's only appealing to the billionaires who have unlimited resources from their oil fields or crime syndicates or wherever the hell they get their money.

I'm only talking about 1 school, per Division, per year.

We could tweak things. It could be like if you've been relegated and you win the lower conference championship and the school that had replaced you in the higher conference finishes last, then that Promotion/Relegation is reversed.

Deserving programs from one Division get their shot at glory in the higher Division. Conferences from the higher Division get to drop underperforming programs to the lower Division.

This system ends all of the BS talking points. Settle stuff on the field.

If schools spend themselves into oblivion trying to avoid relegation, that is their problem. Money can't fix stupid.

I think this would be a hoot. An expanded playoff would increase interest at the higher Division and a playoff with promotion on the line at the lower Divisions would be epic.