(08-13-2021 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  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.

Thank you. This is exactly where I feel this is going…. And they already lost the COVID political nonsense last year. They will lose again.

(08-13-2021 06:23 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(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.

They are not gonna sell those SF games Bruce. We can debate about how relevant it is today from here to Sunday to Kingdom Come. No corporations are going to blow that kind of money on weeknight college football playoff games, let alone working families.

I get that public companies will blow all kinds of money to goose up their share price, make a useless acquisition, spend the endlessly running spigots of liquidity coming from Wall Street, but on college football? Not happening. Not when SF ratings have already been steadily declining year after year with the same teams year in year out.

So the on site businesses take a hit… so be it? At some point the business model just caves in on itself. JRSec articulated everything on where I feel this has been going all along.

(08-13-2021 05:22 PM)SoCalBobcat78 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.

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.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aide Jim!

(08-13-2021 06:57 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  They are not gonna sell those SF games Bruce. We can debate about how relevant it is today from here to Sunday to Kingdom Come. No corporations are going to blow that kind of money on weeknight college football playoff games, let alone working families.

By implication, you are basically telling me that the NCG won't ever be played on a weeknight.

"Working families" as the picture of the kind of supporters who will be able to travel away to multiple playoff games is also a bit detached from reality. That repeat traveler is a lot more likely to own the KFC franchise than be the night manager or operating the opening takeout window register.

Quote: So the on site businesses take a hit… so be it? At some point the business model just caves in on itself. JRSec articulated everything on where I feel this has been going all along.

Nothing in the four points is against the Semi-Final bowls hosting a non CFP bowl game in the same year. That is perfectly compatible with MFN, with no QF bowl getting to host a semi-final in the same year.

So if you are assuming they cannot double dip in that way and then using that assumption as the foundation for a downside, you are begging the question ... building the conclusion into your assumption rather than arriving at it with your argument.

(08-13-2021 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  Of course it is wholly unreasonable. They want the whole playoff structure to adapt to them. The tail doesn't wag the dog ...

The dog is media value. The tail is football competition.

And it is indeed the case that the tail doesn't wag the dog ... that is the basis of the complaints from the tail about the results of the dog wagging the tail.

In this case, the basis of the complaints that in the three cornered negotiations between the conferences and the bowls and the media partners, the media partner is willing to make concessions to the Bowl with both the deepest and broadest brand value, because their media value justifies making those concessions.

Also no coincidence that UT and OU were pulled into the SEC/ESPN camp. Maybe the Rose will look for a new TV partner. This war is just getting started, but the SEC/ESPN camp has landed the first major victory… well, two victories as ND has already bought into it, and three victories going back to the COVID resolution last year.

PAC and B1G are losing the war. They can walk… no question. Bring higher education for the bourgeoisie class exclusively. Same goes for their athletics as well.

(08-13-2021 06:57 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 06:23 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(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.

They are not gonna sell those SF games Bruce. We can debate about how relevant it is today from here to Sunday to Kingdom Come. No corporations are going to blow that kind of money on weeknight college football playoff games, let alone working families.

I get that public companies will blow all kinds of money to goose up their share price, make a useless acquisition, spend the endlessly running spigots of liquidity coming from Wall Street, but on college football? Not happening. Not when SF ratings have already been steadily declining year after year with the same teams year in year out.

So the on site businesses take a hit… so be it? At some point the business model just caves in on itself. JRSec articulated everything on where I feel this has been going all along.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that the semifinal games won’t be a tougher sell ticket-wise if they’re on weeknights. Instead, what many here are saying (including me) is that the powers that be are more than willing to trade to maximize revenue (both TV and ticket) on New Year’s Day.

College football’s brand isn’t the fourth Saturday in December. It’s also not the second or third Saturday in January. As we found within a couple of years in the CFP era, it’s not even New Year’s Eve. College football’s brand is New Year’s *Day* specifically. It’s that *specific* day that maximizes both at-home viewership AND traveling fans.

There has been absolutely no caveat that you speak of. In fact, it has been the exact opposite where the quotes around the newly proposed playoff system have been specifically stating how taking back New Year’s Day was a direct goal. We also have an entire set of CFP TV ratings data that shows how much higher viewership is on NYD compared to other dates. The two semifinals on NYD this past year even got higher ratings than the National Championship Game. I don’t even know why we’re spending time arguing this - every objective piece of evidence from direct quotes and ratings data points to 2 or 3 quarterfinal games on NYD itself.

Does it suck for traveling fans to have to travel to semifinal games in the middle of the week? Yes - absolutely. I’m not disputing that fact. What I’m disputing is that this ultimately outweighs the extraordinary TV and ticket value of multiple quarterfinal games on NYD. I completely disagree there - absolutely nothing about the ratings data or direct quotes from the power brokers indicate that at all.

(08-13-2021 05:22 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  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.

The 4 super conference model could very well be the end game, but in this case they will need to kill one more P5. I think it’s obvious who that will be, but you need to kill it first… THEN SPLIT from the rest of FBS.

If you have 4 conferences of 64 teams or so, then the playoff model writes itself. But under no circumstances will that all happen by 26’. Maybe 36’.

I just don’t see it. ESPN will pay off whiners that need to be shut up and get the two problem children in line. The Mouse is boss. Until that power structure changes, I don’t see conferences severing ties completely from the rest of P5 or FBS.

(08-13-2021 07:57 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 05:22 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  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.

The 4 super conference model could very well be the end game, but in this case they will need to kill one more P5. I think it’s obvious who that will be, but you need to kill it first… THEN SPLIT from the rest of FBS.

If you have 4 conferences of 64 teams or so, then the playoff model writes itself. But under no circumstances will that all happen by 26’. Maybe 36’.

I just don’t see it. ESPN will pay off whiners that need to be shut up and get the two problem children in line. The Mouse is boss. Until that power structure changes, I don’t see conferences severing ties completely from the rest of P5 or FBS.

You're misinterpreting things, it's going to be 1 superconference with 4 regions of 16, all under the banner of the SEC. Tonight's breaking news of the B1G and Pac-12 AND the ACC going into an alliance underscores this movement.

(08-13-2021 07:46 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I don’t think anyone is arguing that the semifinal games won’t be a tougher sell ticket-wise if they’re on weeknights. Instead, what many here are saying (including me) is that the powers that be are more than willing to trade to maximize revenue (both TV and ticket) on New Year’s Day.

College football’s brand isn’t the fourth Saturday in December. It’s also not the second or third Saturday in January. As we found within a couple of years in the CFP era, it’s not even New Year’s Eve. College football’s brand is New Year’s *Day* specifically. It’s that *specific* day that maximizes both at-home viewership AND traveling fans.

There has been absolutely no caveat that you speak of. In fact, it has been the exact opposite where the quotes around the newly proposed playoff system have been specifically stating how taking back New Year’s Day was a direct goal. We also have an entire set of CFP TV ratings data that shows how much higher viewership is on NYD compared to other dates. The two semifinals on NYD this past year even got higher ratings than the National Championship Game. I don’t even know why we’re spending time arguing this - every objective piece of evidence from direct quotes and ratings data points to 2 or 3 quarterfinal games on NYD itself.

Does it suck for traveling fans to have to travel to semifinal games in the middle of the week? Yes - absolutely. I’m not disputing that fact. What I’m disputing is that this ultimately outweighs the extraordinary TV and ticket value of multiple quarterfinal games on NYD. I completely disagree there - absolutely nothing about the ratings data or direct quotes from the power brokers indicate that at all.

As I’ve stated before, you are looking at this completely backward.

You can artificially goose the TV impact of meaningless bowl games from non-qualifying participants by showcasing them on NYD afternoon. It will instantly draw better then games that would otherwise air on a weeknight between Xmas and NYD.

And you still don’t address this, but why are the SFs not on 1pm and 8:30 on NYD as it is every year? I thought travel and ticket sales are of no problem for traveling fans NYE/NYD? So, please explain, why does ESPN have the SF games on the last Saturday of December 2/3 years instead of 1pm NYD? Is 1pm NYD that much worse than 8:30pm on a busy Saturday night in the middle of the Holidays? I’ve not heard one person address this.

(08-13-2021 07:42 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  Also no coincidence that UT and OU were pulled into the SEC/ESPN camp. Maybe the Rose will look for a new TV partner. This war is just getting started, but the SEC/ESPN camp has landed the first major victory… well, two victories as ND has already bought into it, and three victories going back to the COVID resolution last year.

PAC and B1G are losing the war. They can walk… no question. Bring higher education for the bourgeoisie class exclusively. Same goes for their athletics as well.

I don’t think the Rose Bowl is thinking that way. Remember that when Fox actually had the BCS contract, the Rose Bowl separately went with ABC (AKA Disney).

This goes back to the value of NYD-specific tourism. If you’ve ever been to the Rose Bowl and/or Rose Parade, do you know which place gets the benefit of more visitors than any other place in the week leading up to it? Disneyland!!!

That’s why for all of the SEC talk on ESPN during the regular season, when it comes to the week before the Rose Bowl, all you hear is complete reverence from ESPN. The Tournament of Roses contract with Disney is the epitome of corporate synergy: ABC showing the Rose Parade in the morning (filled with references and floats promoting Disney properties plus ads for every new Disney-owned show and movie for the upcoming year), ESPN showing the Rose Bowl in the late afternoon and evening, and all of those deep pocketed fans spending their money at Disneyland the week before (and even better if they buy Disney-focused travel packages which, as anyone knows if they’ve spent money in Disney theme parks, will make the cost of the Rose Bowl ticket look like a rounding error). The Rose Bowl relationship is quite important to Disney far beyond the game itself.

I know that many people here are arguing that ESPN and Disney are Machiavellian in trying to control college football for the sake of saving some money, but it’s honestly a cog compared to the global synergy strategy that I just described above. What I just described above is the real goal in *everything* that Disney does. It’s about selling Hulu Live streaming to watch a game on ABC/ESPN that shows ads for a Marvel/Star Wars/Pixar/Disney Princess movie/show that then spurs you to buy movie tickets and another streaming service (Disney+) that hooks your kids so much that you’ll then spend five figures on a weeklong trip to Disney World or Disneyland… and then repeat that process all over again. THAT is the power that Disney is seeking. It’s not about college football in and of itself - it’s about getting you to spend money on every single asset that they own. Any property that enables them to do that, whether it’s the SEC or Rose Bowl, is a key part of that strategy.

(08-13-2021 08:06 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 07:46 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I don’t think anyone is arguing that the semifinal games won’t be a tougher sell ticket-wise if they’re on weeknights. Instead, what many here are saying (including me) is that the powers that be are more than willing to trade to maximize revenue (both TV and ticket) on New Year’s Day.

College football’s brand isn’t the fourth Saturday in December. It’s also not the second or third Saturday in January. As we found within a couple of years in the CFP era, it’s not even New Year’s Eve. College football’s brand is New Year’s *Day* specifically. It’s that *specific* day that maximizes both at-home viewership AND traveling fans.

There has been absolutely no caveat that you speak of. In fact, it has been the exact opposite where the quotes around the newly proposed playoff system have been specifically stating how taking back New Year’s Day was a direct goal. We also have an entire set of CFP TV ratings data that shows how much higher viewership is on NYD compared to other dates. The two semifinals on NYD this past year even got higher ratings than the National Championship Game. I don’t even know why we’re spending time arguing this - every objective piece of evidence from direct quotes and ratings data points to 2 or 3 quarterfinal games on NYD itself.

Does it suck for traveling fans to have to travel to semifinal games in the middle of the week? Yes - absolutely. I’m not disputing that fact. What I’m disputing is that this ultimately outweighs the extraordinary TV and ticket value of multiple quarterfinal games on NYD. I completely disagree there - absolutely nothing about the ratings data or direct quotes from the power brokers indicate that at all.

As I’ve stated before, you are looking at this completely backward.

You can artificially goose the TV impact of meaningless bowl games from non-qualifying participants by showcasing them on NYD afternoon. It will instantly draw better then games that would otherwise air on a weeknight between Xmas and NYD.

And you still don’t address this, but why are the SFs not on 1pm and 8:30 on NYD as it is every year? I thought travel and ticket sales are of no problem for traveling fans NYE/NYD? So, please explain, why does ESPN have the SF games on the last Saturday of December 2/3 years instead of 1pm NYD. Is 1pm NYD that much worse than 8:30pm on a busy Saturday night in the middle of the Holidays? I’ve not heard one person address this.

The CFP *did* want those games on NYD. The problem was that the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl both signed contracts that guaranteed their NYD time slots before the CFP contract was signed. As a result, the CFP had to completely work around the Rose and Sugar. What you stated may have been possible if only the Rose had their guaranteed NYD time slot, but when the Sugar also locked in their prime time NYD slot, the CFP didn’t have any other real choice than to proceed with how they did. They thought that New Year’s Eve would work, but that ended up a failure and then they moved it to the last Saturday before NYD (which was a little better than NYE, but still a huge viewership decrease compared to when the Rose/Sugar had the semifinals on NYD).

(08-13-2021 06:15 PM)goofus Wrote:  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.

Yep. I agree. Big Ten teams are going to play on campus or find a nearby dome. If the Packers can do it, so can the Badgers. Not sure what factors would eliminate an FBS stadium from hosting a first-round game. TV facilities? Not sure seating would be an issue; quaint stadium size could be a point of interest for the nation.

For fun, here are cold weather stadiums with <40K capacity
Army, UMass, Boise, Utah State, Wyoming, Washington State, and the entire MAC.

(08-13-2021 08:19 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The CFP *did* want those games on NYD. The problem was that the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl both signed contracts that guaranteed their NYD time slots before the CFP contract was signed. As a result, the CFP had to completely work around the Rose and Sugar. What you stated may have been possible if only the Rose had their guaranteed NYD time slot, but when the Sugar also locked in their prime time NYD slot, the CFP didn’t have any other real choice than to proceed with how they did. They thought that New Year’s Eve would work, but that ended up a failure and then they moved it to the last Saturday before NYD (which was a little better than NYE, but still a huge viewership decrease compared to when the Rose/Sugar had the semifinals on NYD).

The “Champions Bowl” was announced a few weeks before the 4 team playoff. It was hardly precedent. If they thought prime time NYD was so relevant they would have slotted another CFP bowl in there.

You’re acting like the so called “contract” bowls all operated in a vacuum as the Rose does. And it still doesn’t address my first point. The scheduling I am thinking of would in fact maximize overall ratings, not just the QF round.

(08-13-2021 08:27 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 08:19 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The CFP *did* want those games on NYD. The problem was that the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl both signed contracts that guaranteed their NYD time slots before the CFP contract was signed. As a result, the CFP had to completely work around the Rose and Sugar. What you stated may have been possible if only the Rose had their guaranteed NYD time slot, but when the Sugar also locked in their prime time NYD slot, the CFP didn’t have any other real choice than to proceed with how they did. They thought that New Year’s Eve would work, but that ended up a failure and then they moved it to the last Saturday before NYD (which was a little better than NYE, but still a huge viewership decrease compared to when the Rose/Sugar had the semifinals on NYD).

The “Champions Bowl” was announced a few weeks before the 4 team playoff. It was hardly precedent. If they thought prime time NYD was so relevant they would have slotted another CFP bowl in there.

You’re acting like the so called “contract” bowls all operated in a vacuum as the Rose does. And it still doesn’t address my first point. The scheduling I am thinking of would in fact maximize overall ratings, not just the QF round.

The Sugar Bowl did exactly that in the same manner as the Rose Bowl. They locked in the prime time NYD slot before the CFP contract was finalized. The SEC in particular wanted the guaranteed exclusive NYD exposure that the Big Ten and Pac-12 have long received from the Rose. As a result, the SEC and Big 12 were not going to allow for a CFP semifinal game to go head-to-head against their equivalent of the Rose Bowl.

Any reasonable person starting from scratch would have put the 2 semifinal games on NYD every year (whether including or around the Rose Bowl) as you’ve mentioned, but the SEC/Big 12/Sugar Bowl contact completely blocked that from occurring. The Sugar acted just like the Rose in this particular situation.

(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.

I think this would be a reasonable format for a 12 team CFP. From a Big Ten and PAC-12 perspective, your champ is likely either playing in the Rose Bowl or in Texas (unless a Big 12 champ manages to crack the top 4, in which case the Big Ten may be moved to the Orange if the ACC is outside the top 4). ACC champ likely still gets the Orange Bowl. SEC champ is assured the Sugar Bowl in prime time (Texas, Oklahoma, and A&M, maybe Missouri and Arkansas, may choose the Cotton Bowl over the Sugar Bowl). I wouldn't be opposed of Pasadena hosting the national championship game.

(08-13-2021 06:25 PM)RUScarlets Wrote:  …. 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. ...

If you are talking about "for decades", you are talking about decades where the balance of money progressively shifted from attendance to media rights ...

... and they have already established the NCG at a weeknight in a week they feel is "not too deep into" the NFL playoffs, which is going to be moving one week later into January with the move to a 17 week regular season.

Notice how close on the heels of the finalization of the NFL Week 17 the development and release of the CFP12 structure came, which has already been approved for taking out to all stakeholders to hammer out the remaining pieces of how the bowls fit in and how the money flows get distributed.

When practicable, there will be 3 quarterfinals on NYD, and the fourth either preceding or following, when the SF comes too close on the heels of NYD to fit 3 QF in, there will be 2 QF on NYD with a opening traditional exhibition bowl and 2QF on the Saturday after Christmas. When NYD is an NFL Sunday, the big 3 will play on NYE Saturday and a fourth on the Monday following.

I don't see this as unreasonable. The whole 12 team idea is a series of compromises around the current power structure, history of the sport, and financial interests.

They want added playoff games because it means more short term money (I am far from convinced it doesn't devalue the regular season enough to eventually hurt them on money, but I'm in the minority on that). They want quarterfinals on New Years because that is where the rating are. They are talking 6 champions in because that is what it will take to get all the conferences on board including the Group of 5 (whom the powers that be still want to officially be attached). They want 6 at large because the most powerful conferences (Big Ten, but especially SEC) want opportunities for more than champs and possibly one or two added teams (this is probably the biggest reason we are jumping from 4 to 12 instead of 6 or 8). The Big Ten and PAC-12 wanting the Rose Bowl tradition to be in this isn't anymore of a burden than anything else that is in to make various parties happy and it actually fits in fairly well as a permanent quarterfinal.

I don't really think it is necessary to use bowls for the semi-finals. My personal thought is to bid it out so you have one city who hosts both the semi-finals and the championship. The bowls used as traditionally as possible on New Years Day though preserves something that could otherwise be lost. Lock in 4 traditional bowls for those spots (my thoughts are Rose, Sugar, Cotton, and Orange, but we can vary depending on what other conferences want). The top 4 champions are known in early December. Put them in whatever bowl fits best. It won't be perfectly traditional, but at least it will preserve some aspect of what the game has felt like.

Preserving the bowl tradition is actually the one and only reason I am rooting for this to work now. I think the sport was better in the BCS than with the College Football Playoff and think 12 will devalue what is still the best regular season in sports. If we're going to change though, let's keep as much of the traditional aspects as we can. The more college football is becoming like the NFL, the less interest I'm finding I have and this is one way to keep one of the major differences.

(08-13-2021 10:17 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  If you are talking about "for decades", you are talking about decades where the balance of money progressively shifted from attendance to media rights ...

This right here is “begging the question”. Since when are ticket sales no longer a major factor? Why do NFL teams continually up the ante on new stadiums or threaten to relocate if they can’t get a new stadium funded. If TV is all they cared about, they’d play the games in a sandlot and no TV viewer would give two *****. It’s just not the case, and I will believe it when I see it. But I don’t think they will acquiesce to the Rose Bowl. The fact that this memo was written prior to the 12-team announcement leads me to believe SEC/ACC/ND thought about at least some of this. Dodds sources confirmed exactly how I felt… 5pm NYD is in jeopardy. I interpret that not as them moving all the QF to NYD, but the bowls adjusting to the most sensible scheduling for the playoff.

(08-14-2021 06:45 AM)RUScarlets Wrote:  

(08-13-2021 10:17 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  If you are talking about "for decades", you are talking about decades where the balance of money progressively shifted from attendance to media rights ...

This right here is “begging the question”. Since when are ticket sales no longer a major factor? Why do NFL teams continually up the ante on new stadiums or threaten to relocate if they can’t get a new stadium funded. If TV is all they cared about, they’d play the games in a sandlot and no TV viewer would give two *****. It’s just not the case, and I will believe it when I see it. But I don’t think they will acquiesce to the Rose Bowl. The fact that this memo was written prior to the 12-team announcement leads me to believe SEC/ACC/ND thought about at least some of this. Dodds sources confirmed exactly how I felt… 5pm NYD is in jeopardy. I interpret that not as them moving all the QF to NYD, but the bowls adjusting to the most sensible scheduling for the playoff.

The NFL actually proves my point. They don’t build new stadiums for merely for more ticket sales. They build new stadiums for corporate suites, high end personal seat licenses, and even more corporate suites. In fact, they’ll even reduce capacity in order to put in more of those corporate suites. No team was in Los Angeles for over two decades even though they had the 90,000 seat Coliseum available. Why? Because a few corporate suites in St. Louis and Jacksonville are actually worth more to an NFL team than 90,000 “normal” seats in the second largest market in the country! It wasn’t until Stan Kroenke was will willing to self-fund a super high-end stadium that LA finally got the NFL back.

Did we also just forget the pandemic (still ongoing) where we saw an entire year’s worth of NFL TV ratings where most teams actually *did* play in a “sandbox” with no fans and people still tuned in? In fact, when several games got shifted to random Tuesday and Wednesday nights (exactly what you fear for the new CFP semifinals) due to COVID protocols, the networks loved it because they got additional prime time windows on great viewership nights!

TV money is driving the bus (meaning prime time weeknight games are optimal) and the CFP will then supplement it with in-person semifinal money by going to a sterile NFL stadium (as described above) so that they can make more money off of selling a single 20-person suite compared to 1000 “normal” fans. When they sell 100 of those suites, they honestly don’t care if the rest of the stadium is totally empty. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but that’s how these people think.