(07-17-2021 08:40 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  I don't necessarily agree with this. The Rose Bowl has enormous brand recognition. People who know nothing and care nothing about college football, like my wife, are well-aware of the Rose Bowl. ...

Which gets back to the presumption that because there is extra money to the Power conferences that is channeled outside of the CFP proper, because that just recycled the bowl participation payments and conference affiliation agreements system that had already evolved ...
... that it has to remain that way.

But part of what ESPN is paying the Rose Bowl for are those people who tune in for the Rose Bowl and rarely tune in for any other game, or maybe only tune in for one or two "big" games in the year.

Part of that are casual fans of various schools, who watch "the big game" and maybe catch some others if there's nothing to do at the time and it's on ... and generating a second "the big game" for them to watch, and "after all, it may be a while before they go back". Every fan base has a distribution of fans, and there are fans who aren't compelled to watch when the school goes to a "you had an 7-5 season, you are going to the {Current Sponsor Name Here!} Bowl!", who are going to tune in when their school is in the Rose Bowl, or the Sugar Bowl.

You maximize those viewer by playing on New Year's Day. And the largest number of those viewers are available for the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl.

If scheduling of the Semi-Finals is no issue, and NYD is on a weekday, you just build the platform by putting the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, and Sugar Bowl on. Have some echo of traditional tie-ins with the Higher Ranking Big Ten or PAC-12 champion, if they have a bye, in the Rose Bowl, the Highest Ranking SEC or Big12 champion if they have a bye in the Sugar Bowl, and the ACC champion if they have a bye in the Orange Bowl.

The other three "NY6" bowls then rotate between one year as Quarterfinal Host and two years as Semi-Final hosts.

As far as allowing "a traditional Rose Bowl" if the Big Ten and PAC-12 both have a bye ... my guess is not, but it's just a guess.

But those relations between the bowls and the conferences might be strengthened with first round affiliates bracketed into their affiliate bowl, and then the at-large seeding done "around" them. They still need to be in the top four of the first round teams to host, but if they are in place, you seed the top at-large seed against the lowest ranked available second round seed, and just step around the contracted team.

You strengthen those relationships (and the sponsorship draw in the various P5 conference territories) with a Big Ten or PAC-12 champion first round quarterfinalist bracketed into the Rose Bowl{*}, an SEC or Big12 first round quarterfinalist bracketed into the Sugar Bowl, and an ACC first round quarterfinalist bracketed into the Orange Bowl.

Now, suppose the Media Partners and Sponsors deliver the news that the NCG had better be wrapped up before round 2 of the NFL playoffs.

The notion that this is some kind of death knell to three QF Bowls on NYD does not really work out, because you can still play the NCG on Thursday after Wild Card Weekend ("Thursday Night Football" is over, after all), so you can play the Semi-Finals on Monday and Tuesday night after Wild Card Weekend, which will always be over a week after the Quarterfinals.

As far as the "traveling fan bases" argument, these are made for TV spectacles. There will be enough traveling fans to provide College Football Color™, and anyway at the Semi-Finals and the NCG, you need enough seats so that the sponsors can give tickets to clients or business associates, so if you had too many traveling fans, they wouldn't have any place to sit.

OK, now there is the fourth quarterfinal. Obviously what you want to do if New Year's is early in the week is to have it the Saturday after Christmas. Depending on the way the NFL scheduling works out, there may be times you want it the Saturday after New Year's.

So you've got your title fight as your anchor. Now, if the right NY6 has been picked, what you want to do to maximize that Saturday's value is to have the two bowls that are hosting Semi-Finals be the Saturday bowls, and there's the lower card for the fourth Quarterfinal. With two games, at most two from the same conference, and to avoid totally gutting the value of bowl affiliations with conferences with 3-4 CFP schools, the "Access" bowl teams must be in the top three ranked schools in their conference.

It's a TV Marketing Exercise. Treat it as one, leverage your media assets, and chase the big pay day. That's the game being played.

As far as whether breaking the purity of the first round seeding breaks the system ... I really don't think so. If you have the four highest ranked FBS champions, and you put the next two champions and the six highest ranked available teams and you drew the hosting and seeding for round one out of a hat, you'd have a series of games where the eventual NCG winner would be seen as the legitimate national champion.

Now, all you have to do is to allow the Quarterfinal & Access Bowls to retain their broadcast rights, allow the conferences to select the Bowl for their champion if they have a Bye and select their bracket if they are in the first round, so that the conferences have something to sell, and the money which used to flow "around" the CFP as participation fees in non-SF NY6 bowls can "during" the Quarterfinal round, in the form of participation payments and "affiliation agreement" payments.