(04-28-2021 12:18 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(04-28-2021 12:12 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(04-28-2021 11:42 AM)usffan Wrote:  Another article with some interesting points...

https://theathletic.com/2542475/2021/04/...-consider/

Quote:Also, either the players will need to get offered more to play more games — something schools probably can do with name, image and likeness laws that go into effect July 1 — or schools will have to play fewer regular-season games. The most likely games to be cut are the buy games, in which the home team pays a lot to a vastly inferior team to get pounded. Season-ticket holders don’t care about those games. Neither do TV networks. ESPN doesn’t want to have a football game on SEC Network Alternate 2. These add very little to the enterprise, so they’re easily sacrificed.

A Power 5 athletic director pointed out to me Sunday that schools would happily trade those games for the onslaught of season-ticket orders from fans who would want priority to buy tickets for home playoff games. What makes you more likely to buy season tickets? A game against The Citadel or UMass every year or the chance to be in position to secure tickets to a home playoff game against Penn State?

Quote:12-team College Football Playoff

The athletic director mentioned above texted a few months ago suggesting a 12-team format. When I suggested that might be a little big, the AD broke down pretty succinctly why every team would care down the stretch in the regular season: “Being one through four is important because of byes,” the AD wrote. “Five through eight is important because of hosting the first round. Nine through 12 is important because you’re in the Playoff.”

That logic makes sense. It also makes sense because it feels recently as if No. 4 has more in common with No. 12 than it does with No. 1. But what would make 12 teams really fun is a year when the teams in the top 12 are all imperfect in some way.

Let’s use the same auto-bid rules we’d use in the eight- and 10-team formats: Power 5 champs get in and the highest-ranked Group of 5 champ gets in.

The article goes through every permutation from 6 through 16 and with multiple set ups. The fact that there's a P5 AD who texted that 12 team scenario that's effectively the 5-1-6 scenario makes me think that's the leader in the clubhouse heading into whenever this happens.

I also saw speculation that ESPN would willingly sign up for this, and do so early, because a) they don't want these rights to go into the open market (CFP games outdraw NBA finals games) and b) locking them into ESPN will justify them getting maximum payment from cable operators and their streaming services and c) it increases the value of every championship game they already own. And furthermore, that this will decrease the likelihood of players opting out of postseason games. There's also speculation that this will not kill all of the bowl games as we think, since ESPN will still make money on them as TV programs because of gambling implications.

I now think this is probably going to happen by 2023.

USFFan

In the SEC, and I'm sure similarly in the Big 10, and likely in part of the B12, those buy games are worth about 3.5 million in gate for it being a home game, and that doesn't touch what the local economy gets from 1 home football game. And those local merchants are among the significant private donors to the program. I wouldn't call them the big money donors, but they are at the top of what fans give. Losing 2 home games will cost every school in the SEC and Big 10 at least 7 million plus donations and for what so 8 random schools can hang a banner saying we made the CFP in 20__!

This is obviously network thinking because the majority of AD's would wet their pants over news of this. I can see the random AD who thinks expanding by 8 schools would get his cusp dwelling program in and make more money and get more publicity but it's the other 54 programs in the P5 who pay the price for it.

When that sinks in this pumping of the idea dries up.

The networks would have to pay each conference ~ 728 million more just to make up for the gate for their 14 member conferences and a little less for the PAC and still less for the Big 12 and that still wouldn't make up for the lost business and likely lost contributions.

I just don't see an upside except for 8 schools and I don't see each conference getting 1 billion more to cover the loss.

I'm still going with the belief that the schools will ultimately have their cake and eat it, too.

I agree that many P5 schools don't want to lose a home date and, as a result, I believe that we'll get an expanded playoff on top of the existing 12-game regular season plus the conference championship game. The NIL compensation is the carrot that gets players on board with the additional game(s). I would be very surprised if this playoff isn't anything less than a pure addition to the current system without taking a single cent of existing revenue away.