(05-06-2019 10:04 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(05-06-2019 07:54 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-02-2019 09:25 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-02-2019 11:16 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(05-02-2019 11:09 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  I don't necessarily agree with this. IMO the biggest factor will be money. The BCS became the CFP because Disney was willing to pay a LOT more money for the CFP.

If the same is true for an 8-team playoff, we will get an 8-team playoff, even if the TV networks veto the idea of P5 champ auto-bids.

If there isn't more money in it, we won't get an 8-team playoff no matter what the format.

The biggest factor is money, for sure, and as with March Madness, the CFP playoff is only going to expand if a ton of new money is offered for an expansion. But I have never seen any indication that ESPN or any other TV outlet would block autobids for P5 champs. If anything, ESPN and Fox would be enthusiastic about those autobids because that would make the rights they already own for CCGs much more valuable.

Plus there have been auto-bids dating back to the 50's in this sport.

But not for playoffs. It's funny watching many here insist that the P5 won't go to 8 unless their are P5 playoff autobids, when the P5 has never insisted on autobids in any playoff format ever.

And yes, they could have created such a system at any time in the past 70 or so years, and yes, they could have insisted that the BCS champ game and the CFP consist solely of conference champions. But they didn't.

There's zero evidence that the P5 have a raging desire for champ auto-bids.

I respect your opinion, but it's entirely different ballgame to have a conference championship requirement in a 4-team playoff (which, to be clear, the Big Ten and Pac-12 actually did push for initially) compared to auto-bids in an 8-team playoff. As I've stated previously, it's simple math: you mathematically *can't* have auto-bids in a 4-team playoff, so it's not relevant that they didn't insist on auto-bids previously in the playoff because it wasn't possible in the first place. The difference with an 8-team playoff is simply that you can now have ALL P5 champs in there automatically... and I really believe that it comes to an "all or none" decision. That is, either let all of the P5 champs in automatically or don't have any type of conference championship requirement at all (as is the case with the current 4-team playoff). The halfway in between "maybe we'll have 3 conference champs and 1 wild card or the top 6 conference champs or some other formula other than pure P5 auto-bids" is a half-measure that won't satisfy the core issue.

More importantly, as esayem notes, the P5 *does* have auto-bids in the form of contract bowls (which existed long before any type of national championship game, much less a playoff). The HUGE difference between the 4-team playoff system and the 8-team playoff system is that the contract bowl system will be fundamentally changed (or even eliminated entirely) with the 8-team playoff that they've been able to avoid in the 4-team playoff. The Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are paying their conference partners $40 million each when those games aren't the semifinals, which are guaranteed auto-bid paydays that will be no longer be there in an 8-team playoff system if those games are consolation bowls with even worse matchups than what they have now.

I respect your view as well. I do think we fundamentally agree on one thing and disagree on another:

First, while obviously it was/is not mathematically possible to give all P5 champs autobids in either the BCS system or the CFP, IMO if that desire is a strong underlying motive force than why hasn't it been manifested anywhere? The CFP could have been structured so as to mandate that the top 4 teams all be conference champs. That would have left one champ still out, but it also would have signalled how strongly they felt about the preeminence of champs. But they didn't do that.

Even more to the point, why haven't we had a playoff system with all P5 champs included all along? There was no federal regulation that says a playoff large enough to accommodate all P5 champs be first worked up to with systems such as the BCS and CFP that didn't permit it. The Power conferences could have implemented an 8-team playoff with all P5 champs included in 2012, heck, in 1998 or before. But they didn't, which again suggests there is no burning desire for such a system. And if we'd had Straight 8 the past five years (8 team playoff but based only on rankings, no guarantees), 24 out of 25 of the P5 champs would have made the playoffs anyway, including all 5 from the B1G. IMO, that's close enough to "automatic" to mollify the apparently modest desire of the B1G or whoever to see their champ in the playoffs. I see no evidence that they would insist on a guarantee.

However, I do agree that the P5 will not agree to any system that doesn't guarantee at least as much money as the CFP does. In fact, I don't think they go to an 8-team playoff of any format unless a lot MORE money is guaranteed. It won't be done for just an incremental increase.

On that note, it's important to remember that bowl games don't really pay the conferences, TV does. That was made clear in 2012, when after the B1G and PAC announced that the Rose Bowl would pay them each $40m a year, the SEC and Big 12 soon after announced the formation of a "Champion's Bowl" that would do the same. That bowl was abandoned when they decided to just make the Sugar Bowl the "Champion's Bowl". And *that* happened when ESPN agreed to pay the same $80m it was paying for the Rose Bowl. The bowls are just a conduit for TV money to the conference, so it's not necessary to involve the bowls at all on the money end. As long as Disney or FOX or CBS or NBC is willing to say boost the payout from $500 million a year (CFP) to say $800 million a year for an 8-team playoff, that's all that matters. And, the same lopsided percentage can be guaranteed to the P5 regardless of who makes the playoffs. That said, I do think the NY6 would be involved, with 4 serving as QFs and 2 as semis on a rotating basis. That makes all NY6 bowls playoffs every year.

Personally, I don't expect an 8-team playoff in 2025 when the CFP deal ends, because I don't think there will be significant extra money on the table to do it, in any format. I think the enormous jump in money from the BCS to the CFP wasn't because the 4-team format was that much more valuable than the 2-team BCS was, I think it happened as a result of the general enormous jump in rights fees for college football that happened between 2008-2012 across the board as reflected in media deals made by the power conferences then. That was kind of a one-time discontinuous adjustment, IMO. We'll now go back to more incremental increases from this higher baseline.