(06-15-2021 05:13 AM)XLance Wrote: The P5, when they formed the committee to look at expanding the playoffs actually formed a committee to solve the Gordian Knot. A way to remove on conference from existence, and how to disburse it's members to the other 4, for the purpose of increasing revenue for ALL of the P5 schools.
This is not to say that these recommendations will be adopted, BUT......
I can tell you this: My school's athletic deficit for this past year has been estimated to be $52 million. There is no way to make that up. The University and Rams Club have launched multiple fund raising incentives to beg for cash donations, with the only real incentive being pride and the promise of better seat locations for football (basketball seats are assigned in perpetuity based on permanent seat licenses for pledges made when the Dean Dome was constructed).
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I imagine the playoff committee will offer a consensus based solution to realignment.
There's no question in my mind that we wouldn't be having this expanded playoff thing right now if the virus hadn't struck. Because the dirty secret is that the virus hit the pockets of the Power conferences far worse than the G conferences. You have a $52m deficit. The SEC just announced it is advancing every school $24m this year against future media earnings to make up for their losses. Etcetera.
That's because (a) the power conferences had much more to lose. If you are Auburn and put 80,000 in the stands and typically make $5m profit from a home game, you lose a lot more from canceled games than a G5 school that struggles to fudge the numbers to report 25,000 in the stands to the NCAA when it really is getting about 15,000 actual butts in the seats and makes next to nothing. You can't lose what you aren't making to begin with. And then you factor in the much higher P5 costs - whether a game is played or not, Auburn still has all those higher-priced fixed costs, like coaches salaries, etc. to pay. The G5 were paying way less for their infrastructure.
Also, (b), paradoxically, the virus showed the strength of a funding model based on soaking students with fees and other transfers from the "academic side", which the G5 rely on heavily. In most places, those fees and transfers kept flowing from students to athletics even though games weren't being played. It's a morally empty model, but it worked.
In contrast, P5 schools tend to rely more on 'variable' funding, funding that varies directly with games being played. IMO, that's ultimately why the PAC and B1G reversed themselves, got off their more-virus-conscious-than-thou high horse, and played - when they took a look at how much of a hit was coming if they didn't play and ESPN didn't send them those $40 million media checks.
So the virus created an immediate "cash crunch" at many P5 schools, and IMO this led to eager thinking to expand the playoffs as a way to get a fresh cash infusion.