(12-18-2019 12:32 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-18-2019 11:27 AM)Transic_nyc Wrote:  

(12-17-2019 09:20 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(12-17-2019 09:08 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(12-17-2019 09:04 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  At this point, we need one or the other: 16 team conferences or a 5-1-2 playoff.

You strip a P5 of its best assets on the road to some 16 team conferences and then you have a P4 and a champions only playoff.

Occam's Razor: It's simpler to move to a P4 than it is to concoct a 5-1-2. It's simpler for the networks to pay a P4 than it is to pay for all of a 5-1-2's parts. It's easier to manage a P4. And the natural structure coming out of P4 doesn't need to be shoehorned into anything but the CFP.

In life in most things simpler wins out.

What would the cost of disassembling/not renewing the CFP?

The Big Ten, PAC 12, and the Rose Bowl are all easy sells.

The SEC would be game and the ACC goes along for the ride.

The tricky part is getting the Sugar Bowl out of its deal with the Big 12.

Then there’s the question of what to call it? Champions Bowl Series?

Would the OB, FB, CB, and PB be in a position to sue for damages? What about the Big 12 and the G5?

The trick is that the most valuable programs from either of the Big 12, Pac 12 or ACC cannot join the SEC or Big Ten. Otherwise, you would continue to have perception issues down the road. Possibly two P5 conferences would be encouraged financially to merge, another overpaid, and four mid-tier programs to the Big Ten/SEC, in order to make the numbers pan out. Of course, they can't all be paid the same or you'd face antitrust issues but the differences would have to be so miniscule so as to discourage the prime programs from joining the Big Ten or SEC. As long as the autobids for the P4 are in place the prime programs of the Big12/PAC/ACC would not face real pressure to move.

And therein lies the rub. There's no expectation that most the programs in the SEC and Big Ten would voluntarily give up their privileged positions in the pecking order to help smooth out the transition to a P4.

So we're back to arguing over implementing a 5-1-2 playoff structure.

That's not what is happening, nor is it the way it will go down. What is happening is the free market at work. And if that market does anything it will reward the strongest and most successful and lay waste to that which is not.

If it profits the Big 10 and SEC to add branding that's what they will do. If it profits the schools they invite they will join.

Mike Slive said that the size of a conference is only limited by it's ability to make a profit for the schools it serves.

The problem here is everyone thinks in terms of 4 conference composed of 16 schools each. It won't happen that way. We may see 2 conferences of 16, one of 15 and one of 12. We may see one of 18, two of 16 and one of 12. But whatever the composition it won't be because of a drive to equality. Things are not equal now and they are going to become more unequal.

State revenue streams are drying up. Federal funds are getting tighter. Sports revenue will be exploited for every nickel the schools can get.

In the coming few years the Big 10 and SEC are likely to grow. The PAC is not. The ACC might or might not. But no matter what happens it will be a move toward greater revenue for any that move, a move toward greater revenue and leverage for the conferences that receive them, and nothing about the process will contain 1 scintilla of a desire for equal numbers, equal revenue, and non of it will care about who was not invited.

The likely targets could be from the Big 12 or PAC because their GORs are expiring. It won't be from the ACC because their GOR remains viable until 2037.

And absolutely none of it will have a thing to do with the CFP structure.

If the SEC and Big 10 add schools the conferences from which they take them will just backfill from the AAC or MWC. And then it will take a few years to decide whether we have a P4 or still have a P5 the only difference is the gap between the Big 10 / SEC over the ACC/PAC/B12 will have grown even larger.

Except it's not the "free market", it's the money driven market in which the major players control access to the "market".
To imply that what will happen is not controlled (or at the very least, heavily influenced) by the networks is misleading.