(07-13-2021 12:21 PM)RUScarlets Wrote: The controversy is as Dodd stated, the Rose is coming out of NYD if they want to take part.
This does indeed look like the ambit claim of one faction: that the bowls will stop being "the tail wagging the dog".
That is not likely to be the way that the bowls look at it. And as Dodd reports, the issue of getting this done as a contract extension is the issue of getting all of the main contract holders to be "made whole". Unless the Rose, Sugar and Orange Bowls agree, there is no contract extension and so the start date is 2026 rather than 2023.
We see the threat that this faction holds, since Dodd presents it: that the 12 team CFP will have games that are so meaningful the brand names of the big brand bowls are mostly just decoration: any of them can be replaced. Indeed, via on-campus sites (or bye-school conference designated sites, if SEC schools don't want to have to play freezer bowls in the Great Lakes or Great Plains), they can be frozen out of the QF entirely.
So they may be the first preference, because of those brand names, but "nobody is irreplaceable".
However, if the CFP alternative FOR the big brand name bowls is too big a step down, they can just veto the contract extension version, and say they will take their current role for the balance of the current CFP contract and then deal with the reduced role in their future starting in 2026.
Quote: The QF will take place prior to the 1st (probably at CCG sites or campus sites) to mitigate travel. This way you can get the SF scheduled the Saturday preceding NFL WC weekend.
Semifinals is a plural. A SF scheduled the Saturday of NFL WC weekend and a SF schedule the Monday of NFL WC weekend is an available alternative.
Quote: I can’t believe people believe weeknight SFs will even be considered. Again, listen carefully to the 15 min mark of that podcast. As soon as they announced 6+6 I knew the Rose and its organizers were completely cut out from the setup.
Except also listen to the part about ESPN not wanting it to go to an extension, and there being enough money to go around to make everyone whole.
Making the bowls whole to get it done by 2023 and using the threat of 2026 to force the bowls to accept a situation where they take the opponents and dates that the CFP tells them to take and say "thank you, kind sir" ... the proposal that they "stop being the tail the wags the dog" ... is a tension in the discussion which doesn't get raised because it's a discussion forum where that tension is not going to get noticed and raised.
And even so, Dodd leaves an out in pointing out that Jim Delany is advising the Rose Bowl, so if the ambit claim does not win out, it can be explained as due to that crafty Delany, and Dodd still "told you so".
Because they
are brands, and the college football viewer demo trends older, where long standing traditions have more weight than in the key demo, the big Bowls can expect that if they are willing to just take the dates and the opponents the CFP dictates and slap their brand name on it, they can
certainly get a system where they rotate being the QF and SF hosts starting in 2026. So if they are willing to accept that, they can just insist on the current contract being played out and the CFP going to market, and still get that.
So if a system is going to get going in 2023, it seems likely they are going to have to be presented a better deal than that. "Making them whole" entails giving them a role in the 12 team playoff that
compensates for the status quo value for the last three years of the current system.
Which may be, after all, why the 12 teams in the playoff was kept under wraps for two years ... to give the best opportunity to lay the groundwork and to put the big brand name bowls on the back foot and force them to play catch up.