(08-13-2021 02:11 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I maintain that the ideal thing to do is to host the semi-finals the Saturday of the weekend of the Pro Bowl and the National Title Game the weekend of the Super Bowl. No weeknight games.

Don’t call them “Bowls”. I’d even go so far as to propose playing both semis and the NCG all in the same city, and bid it out each year, to ease travel fatigue. There’d be no hanging out a week at the host city before the semi finals. Teams show up the day before their game. If they win, then they stay for the week to prepare for the final.

The Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls become your permanent quarterfinal sites. The Cotton and Peach go back to being “best of the rest” bowls.

Oh wow - I can't see college football actually playing the National Championship Game a day before the Super Bowl. Even for someone like me that believes that the "season is too long" argument is overrated, that's waiting waaaaaay too long. That's not to mention that the CFP will then be competing directly with media coverage of the Super Bowl all week, which is pretty much the last thing that the CFP ought to want to do.

Timing the National Championship Game during Pro Bowl weekend is a little more of a possibility, but I still think that's tough to stretch it that long with that getting pushed back to the first weekend in February in the new expanded NFL schedule.

I don't think that we're getting around weeknight playoff games. In the corollary to "thinking like a university president" for conference realignment, we need to "think like a TV executive" for playoff scheduling. That's why (a) they want at least 2 and probably 3 quarterfinal games on NYD specifically and (b) the semifinals and championship games are going to be on weeknights (preferably Monday and/or Thursday).

The worst nights for TV viewership are Saturday night and Friday night, in that order. That has been true for as long as TV has existed as a media platform. (I know it's generally the exact opposite for traveling fans, but think about why that's the case: that's when you're more likely to be not worried about going to work with a hangover the next day and be flexible to leave your own house... AKA where you're NOT watching TV. Hence, there's often an inverse relationship between what's good for fans in the stands and what's good for TV.) College football gets good TV ratings during the regular season *despite* their Saturday time slots, NOT because of them. We all need to remember this when thinking about the playoff schedule.

(08-13-2021 02:31 PM)ken d Wrote:  While it's likely to be approved, given who was on the committee that proposed a 12 team CFP, here is something that will never be approved as an alternative but could produce the most revenue.

Have the B1G add two schools to go to 16 members to match the SEC.

Allow the B1G and SEC to stage 4-team conference championship tournaments. Each of the 4 CCT finalists qualify for the CFP, and the four teams that lose in the CCT first round are eliminated from CFP consideration.

Begin an 8 team CFP on New Year's.

The B1G champion plays the PAC champion in the Rose Bowl.
The Rose winner plays the Fiesta winner between the highest ranked G6 champ and the SEC CCT loser.

The SEC champion plays the ACC champion in the Sugar Bowl.
The Sugar winner plays the Orange winner between the B1G CCT loser and the highest ranked team not already qualified (or eliminated in a CCT semi).

Close. You don’t want the SEC Championship to be guaranteed no impact on the playoff field. Nor do you want it in mid-December.

If you do East and West Champions you simply put both of them into the National Playoff. If you want to stage an SEC-wide championship, you do so IN the Sugar Bowl. But I don’t think there is the need to force the SEC East and West champions into a playoff game together; you likely get better ratings deeper into the playoff if they play separately.

(08-13-2021 03:20 PM)Crayton Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 02:31 PM)ken d Wrote:  While it's likely to be approved, given who was on the committee that proposed a 12 team CFP, here is something that will never be approved as an alternative but could produce the most revenue.

Have the B1G add two schools to go to 16 members to match the SEC.

Allow the B1G and SEC to stage 4-team conference championship tournaments. Each of the 4 CCT finalists qualify for the CFP, and the four teams that lose in the CCT first round are eliminated from CFP consideration.

Begin an 8 team CFP on New Year's.

The B1G champion plays the PAC champion in the Rose Bowl.
The Rose winner plays the Fiesta winner between the highest ranked G6 champ and the SEC CCT loser.

The SEC champion plays the ACC champion in the Sugar Bowl.
The Sugar winner plays the Orange winner between the B1G CCT loser and the highest ranked team not already qualified (or eliminated in a CCT semi).

Close. You don’t want the SEC Championship to be guaranteed no impact on the playoff field. Nor do you want it in mid-December.

If you do East and West Champions you simply put both of them into the National Playoff. If you want to stage an SEC-wide championship, you do so IN the Sugar Bowl. But I don’t think there is the need to force the SEC East and West champions into a playoff game together; you likely get better ratings deeper into the playoff if they play separately.

The SEC wants a champion.

Not only that, but the conference owns the revenue from that ccg.

I don't see the Rose Bowl asking for anything unreasonable. They are simply exerting their clout among the Bowl games. The Rose Bowl Game is known as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” The Rose Bowl Game has been a sellout attraction every year since 1947.

The Rose Bowl is an inconic stadium in a beautidul setting surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. It is a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark located in the largest college football media market in the nation. The stadium opened in 1922 and there is just a tremendous amount of tradition and history that surrounds the game. It is unmatched among bowl games.

They are going to have two power conferences supporting them as well as ESPN. If college football wants to expand the playoffs while maintaining their history and tradition, they will find a way to accomodate the Rose Bowl game. That should not be too difficult.

(08-13-2021 11:54 AM)ken d Wrote:  If the bulk of attendance at semifinal games isn't traveling fans of the participants, I'd consider another option that I've never heard proposed (maybe for good reason).

Play first round games on campus, hosted by #5-8. All gate receipts go into revenue pool, not retained by host.

First QF at Orange Bowl on New Year's Eve, where they have traditionally had a gala halftime show. The other QF at Sugar, Rose and Fiesta in that order on NYD. Try to accommodate conference tie-ins as well as possible (since there is still adequate time for travel planning).

Now the radical proposal. Go back to campus for the semis, with the two highest ranked remaining teams hosting. Provide ample ticket allocation for traveling teams. Again, ticket revenues go to a pool, not the host. Chances are pretty good that these two schools would not have also hosted a first round game.

Finals rotate between the Cotton and Peach Bowls, with the one not hosting getting a preferred time slot for its non-CFP bowl game.

I can't really see the semis going to campus sites. Logistics, less corporate $, January weather in the North, over-emphasizes who is #2 vs. #3. A lot of potential hang-ups.

But I wonder if this would work, which has most of the elements of your plan:

(1) The 5-12 teams playing the week after conference Championship games, on campus.

(2) NYE/NYD becomes QF day. Orange (6 PM NYE), Cotton (1 PM NYD), Rose (5 PM NYD), Sugar (8:30 PM NYD) guaranteed QFs and guaranteed times. There could be anchor conferences for each game too, in theory.

(3) Atlanta and Phoenix host a SF annually. These are the "new" Fiesta & Peach Bowls.

(4) Final at a neutral-site .... Miami, Dallas or New Orleans hosts 3 out of every 4 years while you bring in another site (an Indy, Houston, Vegas, et cetera) once every 4 years.

Rose gets their all-important time slot. Miami, Dallas and NOLA keep their traditional Bowls and time slots, plus get to double-dip w/ the National Title Game 1 year out of 4. Atlanta & Phoenix aren't shut out, their Bowls don't slip down in importance and actually become more important, although at the cost of perhaps a more corporate crowd vs. fan-oriented crowd. Other sites beyond these 6 have the occasional opportunity to still host the National Title Game. NYD is, once again, a can't miss great day for the college football fan.

It's pretty obvious what will have. Two conferences, representing 26 of the 65 power schools (40%), will protect their brand equity and tie in to the Rose Bowl.

Since the plan is for the quarter-finals, when the top four conference winners host, will be built around the New Years Bowls, that the Rose will be one of those four and will have as host either the Pac-12 or the B1G champion. Almost certainly the committee will line up the opponent to come from a game where either a Pac-12 school --if the B1G champion is hosting-- can advance if they win, or a B1G or Midwest (e.g. Big 12 or Texas/A&M/OU) --if the Pac-12 champion is hosting-- can advance with a win.

It's pretty simple, protects the B1G and Pac-12 interests, doesn't disrupt the schedule of either the Rose Parade or the Playoff. I'm surprised there is any controversy with this at all. Seems fake to me. But then again I'm not from SEC or ACC territory.

(08-13-2021 03:50 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  I don't see the Rose Bowl asking for anything unreasonable. They are simply exerting their clout among the Bowl games. The Rose Bowl Game is known as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” The Rose Bowl Game has been a sellout attraction every year since 1947.

The Rose Bowl is an inconic stadium in a beautidul setting surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. It is a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark located in the largest college football media market in the nation. The stadium opened in 1922 and there is just a tremendous amount of tradition and history that surrounds the game. It is unmatched among bowl games.

They are going to have two power conferences supporting them as well as ESPN. If college football wants to expand the playoffs while maintaining their history and tradition, they will find a way to accomodate the Rose Bowl game. That should not be too difficult.

Of course it is wholly unreasonable. They want the whole playoff structure to adapt to them. The tail doesn't wag the dog and if the PAC and B1G insist upon this there will be a split with the SEC and ACC holding the CFP and the growing political cults in the Big 10 and PAC 12 doing their own thing and making the Rose Bowl their championship and we are back to split claims on who is National Champion. It was bound to happen as each became more irrelevant in the national sports scene.

What will be interesting is too see how hard either side works to resolve this issue. If we go down this path a few PAC schools and maybe as many as half a dozen B10 schools may wind up in the ESPN CFP and out of the Rose Bowl faction. Which very uniquely may be the only way anyone from the PAC or B1G would have ever left their conferences.

So I'll keep an interested eye to see what happens here but to me it seems to be a line in the sand over a convenient excuse.

What I thought it's SEC folks complaining about B1G and Pac-12 interests.

The SEC will cave, they need the Pac-12 and B1G buy-in.

(08-13-2021 04:24 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  What I thought it's SEC folks complaining about B1G and Pac-12 interests.

The SEC will cave, they need the Pac-12 and B1G buy-in.

No they don't! They've been anticipating this and with the current status in sports most sports fans will see it for what it is, a new form of "take my ball and go home".

There are concerned B10 schools who have quietly been feeling out the new landscape. Minnesota, Michigan, and the Illinois schools are already on record over what they feel about NIL, but even more so over stipends.

This divide doesn't have a locus, but loci. Part of it is ideological, part of it a mechanism for coping with changing demographics and the inability to overcome recruiting disadvantages, and part of it is an understandable desire to maintain more appropriate priorities on campus. And part on both sides is ego.

The inevitable issue is not all of their member schools will agree and I expect some defections over it. Likewise there is a reasonable chance some ACC schools may opt for what I'll call the Rose Bowl model while most will stick with ESPN's CFP.

So one side will have a championship in the Rose Bowl, will stay with the NCAA, and will emphasize amateurism. The other side will embrace semi professional status, will break away from NCAA control and will follow an NFL model.

Personally I believe this will be healthy for all concerned because compromise hurts both sides. Vanderbilt, Duke, Virginia, maybe UNC, Boston College, Wake Forest and possibly AAC schools like Tulane, Tulsa, and the Service Academies are likely to follow this model.

I think we'll see this playout over the next 5 years, or so.

USC, Utah, BYU, Arizona State, and possibly Oregon pursue the CFP model. Washington? Penn State, Ohio State, Iowa, Nebraska, and maybe Indiana do as well.

We'll see!

Blah .They’ll get get a bone thrown at them in the end like when they whined at the original bcs but that’s it. It’s like ground hog day with them and Delaney.

I don't see the SEC or ACC making either the Sugar or Orange bowls sacrosanct. They will be more concerned with having a regional game for their champions, similar to the regional home-courts we seen in the NCAA tournament. So, Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans and even Arlington fit as acceptable QF hosts for a top-4 SEC champion.

The B1G and PAC, however, are digging their heels to keep the Rose Bowl tie-in. I believe they will succeed, which means that the Rose Bowl will be an annual QF game that definitely involves either the PAC or B1G champion and probably will have a preference for both...or at least a team from each conference, if not the champion. I believe the PAC champ will get Rose Bowl priority if one of the top-4 champs. I could also see the CFP field seeded as groups of 1-seed (#1-4) and 2-seed teams (surviving #5-12), rather than straight #1-8.

Thus, the Rose Bowl will mostly host a 1-seed PAC champ versus a 2-seed B1G team or a 1-seed B1G champ versus a 2-seed PAC team.

I'll just leave this here so that all of our resident conspiracy theorists can freak out over nothing...

(08-13-2021 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 03:50 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  I don't see the Rose Bowl asking for anything unreasonable. They are simply exerting their clout among the Bowl games. The Rose Bowl Game is known as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” The Rose Bowl Game has been a sellout attraction every year since 1947.

The Rose Bowl is an inconic stadium in a beautidul setting surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. It is a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark located in the largest college football media market in the nation. The stadium opened in 1922 and there is just a tremendous amount of tradition and history that surrounds the game. It is unmatched among bowl games.

They are going to have two power conferences supporting them as well as ESPN. If college football wants to expand the playoffs while maintaining their history and tradition, they will find a way to accomodate the Rose Bowl game. That should not be too difficult.

Of course it is wholly unreasonable. They want the whole playoff structure to adapt to them. The tail doesn't wag the dog and if the PAC and B1G insist upon this there will be a split with the SEC and ACC holding the CFP and the growing political cults in the Big 10 and PAC 12 doing their own thing and making the Rose Bowl their championship and we are back to split claims on who is National Champion. It was bound to happen as each became more irrelevant in the national sports scene.

What will be interesting is too see how hard either side works to resolve this issue. If we go down this path a few PAC schools and maybe as many as half a dozen B10 schools may wind up in the ESPN CFP and out of the Rose Bowl faction. Which very uniquely may be the only way anyone from the PAC or B1G would have ever left their conferences.

So I'll keep an interested eye to see what happens here but to me it seems to be a line in the sand over a convenient excuse.

That is an entertaining theory. My theory is that we will have four power conferences in 2026 and two of them will be fighting for the Rose Bowl, with assistance from ESPN. That is going to be a large, smart and influential tail wagging that SEC dog.

(08-13-2021 03:20 PM)Crayton Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 02:31 PM)ken d Wrote:  While it's likely to be approved, given who was on the committee that proposed a 12 team CFP, here is something that will never be approved as an alternative but could produce the most revenue.

Have the B1G add two schools to go to 16 members to match the SEC.

Allow the B1G and SEC to stage 4-team conference championship tournaments. Each of the 4 CCT finalists qualify for the CFP, and the four teams that lose in the CCT first round are eliminated from CFP consideration.

Begin an 8 team CFP on New Year's.

The B1G champion plays the PAC champion in the Rose Bowl.
The Rose winner plays the Fiesta winner between the highest ranked G6 champ and the SEC CCT loser.

The SEC champion plays the ACC champion in the Sugar Bowl.
The Sugar winner plays the Orange winner between the B1G CCT loser and the highest ranked team not already qualified (or eliminated in a CCT semi).

Close. You don’t want the SEC Championship to be guaranteed no impact on the playoff field. Nor do you want it in mid-December.

If you do East and West Champions you simply put both of them into the National Playoff. If you want to stage an SEC-wide championship, you do so IN the Sugar Bowl. But I don’t think there is the need to force the SEC East and West champions into a playoff game together; you likely get better ratings deeper into the playoff if they play separately.

I structured this to give the two Big Dogs, the SEC and B1G, four teams each into a de facto CFP. Two of them are eliminated in the first round and can play in a bowl game. The other two move on, and can't meet each other again until the national championship final.

The SEC championship game determines who advances to the Sugar Bowl.

(08-13-2021 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 03:50 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  I don't see the Rose Bowl asking for anything unreasonable. They are simply exerting their clout among the Bowl games. The Rose Bowl Game is known as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” The Rose Bowl Game has been a sellout attraction every year since 1947.

The Rose Bowl is an inconic stadium in a beautidul setting surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. It is a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark located in the largest college football media market in the nation. The stadium opened in 1922 and there is just a tremendous amount of tradition and history that surrounds the game. It is unmatched among bowl games.

They are going to have two power conferences supporting them as well as ESPN. If college football wants to expand the playoffs while maintaining their history and tradition, they will find a way to accomodate the Rose Bowl game. That should not be too difficult.

Of course it is wholly unreasonable. They want the whole playoff structure to adapt to them. The tail doesn't wag the dog and if the PAC and B1G insist upon this there will be a split with the SEC and ACC holding the CFP and the growing political cults in the Big 10 and PAC 12 doing their own thing and making the Rose Bowl their championship and we are back to split claims on who is National Champion. It was bound to happen as each became more irrelevant in the national sports scene.

What will be interesting is too see how hard either side works to resolve this issue. If we go down this path a few PAC schools and maybe as many as half a dozen B10 schools may wind up in the ESPN CFP and out of the Rose Bowl faction. Which very uniquely may be the only way anyone from the PAC or B1G would have ever left their conferences.

So I'll keep an interested eye to see what happens here but to me it seems to be a line in the sand over a convenient excuse.

I'm not understanding what's unreasonable:

(1) We take the 12-team playoff proposed as-is with the top 4 conference champs getting byes.

(2) The Rose Bowl is a permanent quarterfinal and takes either the top 4 Big Ten or Pac-12 champ on a rotating basis.

That doesn't even alter the SEC insistence on a "pure" bracket because the Rose Bowl is conceding that they're not getting a Big Ten champ vs. Pac-12 champ matchup.

If the Sugar Bowl is a quarterfinal, then I would think that the SEC champ would be slotted there in the exact same way. I would expect the thing with respect to the ACC champ when it's a quarterfinal.

So, I'm not exactly sure what's controversial. This seems to be people complaining about the Rose Bowl because they're so used to complaining about the Rose Bowl always getting "special treatment" and being in the way of more playoff games... but this memo pretty much shows how the Rose Bowl can be integrated into a 12-team playoff with pretty much zero impact on how that playoff is run from a competitive standpoint.

I can understand the rest of college football not agreeing to requests #1 and #3. However, if there's actually pushback from the other leagues about requests #2 and #4 regarding the Rose Bowl, then *they're* the ones being obstinate as opposed to the Rose Bowl, Big Ten and Pac-12 on this matter.

(08-13-2021 05:11 PM)Wedge Wrote:  I'll just leave this here so that all of our resident conspiracy theorists can freak out over nothing...

When some of the ostriches around here get their heads out of the sands of meaningless articles by beat writers and bloggers and psuedo personalities and actually look at what's happening in the world maybe they'll get some things right.

2009: Realignment is a hostile corporate takeover of college sports.
Response: Conspiracy Theory, Presidents are in control, yada yada yada.
Now: A fairly widely accepted premise.

2009-12: Market footprint models are just used by networks to split the major draws in large states which gives the networks more ad leverage over conferences. The real money is in content.
Response: You don't understand the market model.
Now: Content is not just king again, it was always king! Rutgers, Maryland, Missouri, etc.

2012: Major demographic shifts are coming which will result in massive downsizing in higher ed.
Response: Nonsense, conspiracy theory!
Now: Now it is evident, as is the demographic shift. Denial Wedge! Denial.

2009-Date: The SEC will expand with top brands, optimally Texas and Oklahoma
Response: Nonsense, Texas will never....., Oklahoma will never.....
Now: Fait Accompli While I am surprised we didn't have to take baggage to make it happen Texas had been in talks with the SEC since '87 and had remained in talks since and initially OU communicated through Texas until 2011 when Boren wanted an SEC with one slot with A&M in to take both OU and OSU so Missouri got the nod.

Lucky guess? Hardly I had family in the loop since 1987 and through 2012. There were just a crap load of fans who didn't want to believe it because nobody else was saying it.

Now This: The statements from Michigan and Minnesota are on record, as are the hard feelings over Warren's handling of COVID by several of the universities I listed as likely to take a different path. We are clearly going to have a bifurcated path moving past NIL and stipends. I see the Rose Bowl as a deliberate cart before the horse intended to test the resolve of the ESPN crowd's desire to leave the NCAA and to serve as an excuse to bifurcate the path moving forward. And how that can be denied in a nation becoming ever divided over all matters of culture is excessively obtuse.

But hey, I'm use to the howls of ridiculous, nonsense, and conspiracy only none of you who howl that have the guts to later admit you were wrong. I'm used to that as well.

So yet again, as I've said thousands of times, we'll see.

BTW a thread which is several year's old called "What if Texas..." laid out clearly their motives a few years ago. And, "Time, Monetary Disparity and Pressure clearly laid out the future dilemmas to be faced by the ACC.

Most of my value in my endeavors leading to my 2 retirements were centered around an ability to analyze data in real time and project future conditions. Of course like anyone I can be wrong, but sports is softball compared to business and politics and knowing the right people doesn't hurt either.

All of life is a conspiracy, it's just that not all of them are criminal, or bad in effect. We have a divergence of priorities in the P5 and compromise negatively impacts both visions. Sooner or later we diverge and hopefully both pathways thrive. We'll see!

(08-13-2021 05:52 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 03:50 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  I don't see the Rose Bowl asking for anything unreasonable. They are simply exerting their clout among the Bowl games. The Rose Bowl Game is known as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” The Rose Bowl Game has been a sellout attraction every year since 1947.

The Rose Bowl is an inconic stadium in a beautidul setting surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. It is a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark located in the largest college football media market in the nation. The stadium opened in 1922 and there is just a tremendous amount of tradition and history that surrounds the game. It is unmatched among bowl games.

They are going to have two power conferences supporting them as well as ESPN. If college football wants to expand the playoffs while maintaining their history and tradition, they will find a way to accomodate the Rose Bowl game. That should not be too difficult.

Of course it is wholly unreasonable. They want the whole playoff structure to adapt to them. The tail doesn't wag the dog and if the PAC and B1G insist upon this there will be a split with the SEC and ACC holding the CFP and the growing political cults in the Big 10 and PAC 12 doing their own thing and making the Rose Bowl their championship and we are back to split claims on who is National Champion. It was bound to happen as each became more irrelevant in the national sports scene.

What will be interesting is too see how hard either side works to resolve this issue. If we go down this path a few PAC schools and maybe as many as half a dozen B10 schools may wind up in the ESPN CFP and out of the Rose Bowl faction. Which very uniquely may be the only way anyone from the PAC or B1G would have ever left their conferences.

So I'll keep an interested eye to see what happens here but to me it seems to be a line in the sand over a convenient excuse.

I'm not understanding what's unreasonable:

(1) We take the 12-team playoff proposed as-is with the top 4 conference champs getting byes.

(2) The Rose Bowl is a permanent quarterfinal and takes either the top 4 Big Ten or Pac-12 champ on a rotating basis.

That doesn't even alter the SEC insistence on a "pure" bracket because the Rose Bowl is conceding that they're not getting a Big Ten champ vs. Pac-12 champ matchup.

If the Sugar Bowl is a quarterfinal, then I would think that the SEC champ would be slotted there in the exact same way. I would expect the thing with respect to the ACC champ when it's a quarterfinal.

So, I'm not exactly sure what's controversial. This seems to be people complaining about the Rose Bowl because they're so used to complaining about the Rose Bowl always getting "special treatment" and being in the way of more playoff games... but this memo pretty much shows how the Rose Bowl can be integrated into a 12-team playoff with pretty much zero impact on how that playoff is run from a competitive standpoint.

I can understand the rest of college football not agreeing to requests #1 and #3. However, if there's actually pushback from the other leagues about requests #2 and #4 regarding the Rose Bowl, then *they're* the ones being obstinate as opposed to the Rose Bowl, Big Ten and Pac-12 on this matter.

#2 and #4 can be accommodated, but it IS an accommodation. The Rose is asking for special treatment. So its not being obstinate to push back. However, these aren't huge concessions.

If the choice has to be an NFL indoor stadium, I could see Big Ten teams picking the following sites

Neb - Jerry World
Minn, Wisc - US Bank stadium
Iowa, NW, ILL, Pur, Indy, OSU - Lucas Oil Stadium
Mich, MSU - Ford Field
PSU, MD, Rut - ???

If the dome in St Louis is an option, I could see maybe Iowa choosing that one, but one thing is obvious, schools are going to want stadium options closer to their campus, which means ultimately Big Ten teams will want to play their CFP games on campus. The exceptions might be Minnesota. Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers., MD, and Rut. Who might still choose the local NFL stadium for a CFP game.

Now on the other hand, if a MAC team ever had a chance to host a playoff game, they might be forced to play at a designated CFP approved stadium.

(08-13-2021 11:34 AM)RUScarlets Wrote:  The 12 team setup with the scheduling I have in mind devalues NYD, no question. But ultimately, you have to accommodate a tournament, not one day. This was the caveat all along.

Where is this caveat set out, explicitly, by those pursuing the CFP12?

The other reading is that they wanted to accommodate a tournament, and wanted to take back NYD, and it was not until the NFL decided to add a week to its season that it became possible to do both with a CFP12 with Quarterfinals on NYD.

"Accommodating the tournament" does not mean maximizing the number of traveling fans that attend three or four games in succession! This is not the 70s, where the traveling fans are the primary money driver for the post season football games.

Setting up #5-#8 hosting #12-#9, then the longest gap in the tournament, then the QF, then in intervals between one and two weeks each the SF and NCG is focusing on maximizing the number of traveling fans for the Quarterfinals. It is a tournament structure established so that there is no conflict between accommodating the tournament and accommodating the recapture of NYD.

________________

(08-13-2021 06:13 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 05:52 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I'm not understanding what's unreasonable:

(1) We take the 12-team playoff proposed as-is with the top 4 conference champs getting byes.

(2) The Rose Bowl is a permanent quarterfinal and takes either the top 4 Big Ten or Pac-12 champ on a rotating basis.

That doesn't even alter the SEC insistence on a "pure" bracket because the Rose Bowl is conceding that they're not getting a Big Ten champ vs. Pac-12 champ matchup.

If the Sugar Bowl is a quarterfinal, then I would think that the SEC champ would be slotted there in the exact same way. I would expect the thing with respect to the ACC champ when it's a quarterfinal.

So, I'm not exactly sure what's controversial. This seems to be people complaining about the Rose Bowl because they're so used to complaining about the Rose Bowl always getting "special treatment" and being in the way of more playoff games... but this memo pretty much shows how the Rose Bowl can be integrated into a 12-team playoff with pretty much zero impact on how that playoff is run from a competitive standpoint.

I can understand the rest of college football not agreeing to requests #1 and #3. However, if there's actually pushback from the other leagues about requests #2 and #4 regarding the Rose Bowl, then *they're* the ones being obstinate as opposed to the Rose Bowl, Big Ten and Pac-12 on this matter.

#2 and #4 can be accommodated, but it IS an accommodation. The Rose is asking for special treatment. So its not being obstinate to push back. However, these aren't huge concessions.

#4 is on a point that maximizes the individual value of the Rose Bowl, but on the other hand, the Rose Bowl is the single most valuable brand in post-season FBS football, and maximizing its value is part and parcel of maximizing the media value of the whole CFP12 system.

The Rose Bowl has been associated with the schools that make up the PAC for over a century, since before the PAC existed. And there may be a precious few alive who remember the pre-WWII system where invitations to come west were more widely distributed ... but even for those few, its a faded memory compared to 70+ years of affiliation with the Big Ten.

The ambit claim, here, is the goal of an individual contract.

If the SEC holds to its preference for a pure seeded tournament, and if the Rose bowl, Big Ten and PAC-12 insist on rotating hosting in the Rose Bowl, and if the Sugar Bowl is scheduled alongside the Rose Bowl where it adds maximum value, that by necessity implies that the Sugar Bowl would not be an affiliate of the SEC.

But that would be the SEC choosing its priorities. If the SEC places a pure seeded tournament above its relationship with the Sugar Bowl, one thing that opens up is the possibility for the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl to form an alliance in pursuit of a common NYD QF bowl contract.

Since a pure seeded tournament is the SEC's guarantee against any implicit limits on spots available per conference, I think they likely do have that as their higher priority.

(08-13-2021 04:04 PM)Nittany_Bearcat Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 11:54 AM)ken d Wrote:  If the bulk of attendance at semifinal games isn't traveling fans of the participants, I'd consider another option that I've never heard proposed (maybe for good reason).

Play first round games on campus, hosted by #5-8. All gate receipts go into revenue pool, not retained by host.

First QF at Orange Bowl on New Year's Eve, where they have traditionally had a gala halftime show. The other QF at Sugar, Rose and Fiesta in that order on NYD. Try to accommodate conference tie-ins as well as possible (since there is still adequate time for travel planning).

Now the radical proposal. Go back to campus for the semis, with the two highest ranked remaining teams hosting. Provide ample ticket allocation for traveling teams. Again, ticket revenues go to a pool, not the host. Chances are pretty good that these two schools would not have also hosted a first round game.

Finals rotate between the Cotton and Peach Bowls, with the one not hosting getting a preferred time slot for its non-CFP bowl game.

I can't really see the semis going to campus sites. Logistics, less corporate $, January weather in the North, over-emphasizes who is #2 vs. #3. A lot of potential hang-ups.

But I wonder if this would work, which has most of the elements of your plan:

(1) The 5-12 teams playing the week after conference Championship games, on campus.

(2) NYE/NYD becomes QF day. Orange (6 PM NYE), Cotton (1 PM NYD), Rose (5 PM NYD), Sugar (8:30 PM NYD) guaranteed QFs and guaranteed times. There could be anchor conferences for each game too, in theory.

(3) Atlanta and Phoenix host a SF annually. These are the "new" Fiesta & Peach Bowls.

(4) Final at a neutral-site .... Miami, Dallas or New Orleans hosts 3 out of every 4 years while you bring in another site (an Indy, Houston, Vegas, et cetera) once every 4 years.

Rose gets their all-important time slot. Miami, Dallas and NOLA keep their traditional Bowls and time slots, plus get to double-dip w/ the National Title Game 1 year out of 4. Atlanta & Phoenix aren't shut out, their Bowls don't slip down in importance and actually become more important, although at the cost of perhaps a more corporate crowd vs. fan-oriented crowd. Other sites beyond these 6 have the occasional opportunity to still host the National Title Game. NYD is, once again, a can't miss great day for the college football fan.

…. It boggles the mind… three travel weekends (and devaluing the QF bowls) are the sole reason we haven’t had a 4 team playoff for decades let alone 8 plus teams. If they’ve found the magic elixir then so be it. But it’s just not as feasible as you say.

Either that, or corporations and sponsors are sitting on so much $$$ (and I’m well aware they are), that they can blow money on a college football corporate bash as a sort of extension to the Holidays. We’ve seen crazier things before, but I don’t know, I guess we’ll find out soon enough. But I will be shocked if it is anything remotely close to this setup. I just can’t fathom that they’d wait all these years only to end up doing what they said they couldn’t do for a hundred years…. As if the popularity of the sport has grown exponentially in the last few years (it hasn’t… viewership has been in decline across almost every sport).