College Football Playoff expansion delayed as officials fail to form consensus over numerous issues

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discochris said:
You and I agree on this, but it seems that a lot of people here and on other boards I frequent, don't like that at all. Hence a lot of the backlash against Cinci making the playoff this year.

I want to see the G5 conference champions in the playoffs for this very reason.
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Cinci deserved in. They were undefeated and they have lost 2 games in the last two years. Georgia by 3 and Alabama. The playoff needs to be inclusive so the champ is determined by league and playoff performance.
 

Talks of expansion are driven by revenue streams. That is the money side of sports. The NFL has done it.

D1 football schools are considering expanding to an eight-to-twelve team playoff. Is there a point of saturation? The notion that advertising and turnstile revenues are limitless may reach a point of fan fatigue and low ratings. How are they going to schedule it on TV with the NFL expansion taking time slots? What is going to happen to traditional college bowls?

Then there is a question of what is a student-athlete. Are the students in college to Play Skool? I think the men's basketball one-and-dones are there. Should they make it mandatory for basketball players to stay in school for two years? Should these players go straight to NBA Basketball leagues instead? There are other factors. You can't do that in football because of the number of players and resources it will take.

I can see where there are lots of points of disagreement in college football.
 


MaxyJR1 said:
Cinci deserved in. They were undefeated and they have lost 2 games in the last two years. Georgia by 3 and Alabama. The playoff needs to be inclusive so the champ is determined by league and playoff performance.
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Another way to look at it is that they had only 2 wins over programs with revenue of 30M+/year. Everyone else had at least 8.

The combined revenue of the teams Cincinnati beat would be about 1/4 of any other team that has ever made the CFP.
 

hungan1 said:
Talks of expansion are driven by revenue streams. That is the money side of sports. The NFL has done it.

D1 football schools are considering expanding to an eight-to-twelve team playoff. Is there a point of saturation? The notion that advertising and turnstile revenues are limitless may reach a point of fan fatigue and low ratings. How are they going to schedule it on TV with the NFL expansion taking time slots? What is going to happen to traditional college bowls?

Then there is a question of what is a student-athlete. Are the students in college to Play Skool? I think the men's basketball one-and-dones are there. Should they make it mandatory for basketball players to stay in school for two years? Should these players go straight to NBA Basketball leagues instead? There are other factors. You can't do that in football because of the number of players and resources it will take.

I can see where there are lots of points of disagreement in college football.
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I don’t think there is a point of saturation of the Playoff itself (or at least they aren’t close to it)

but for football, if you make the playoff too big you at some point kill regular season ratings.

people watch nfl because only 16 games a week. But there are 50-70 FBS games a week. I watch Alabama auburn because it matters. If there are 12 at large bids Alabama Auburn doesn’t matter anymore.

So when they expand, they should be careful to expand in a way that doesn’t devalue the regular season.

Right now 4 at large bids. Every 2-5th place team in a conference you allow in devalues the regular season and kills what makes college football great.


that is why O think the smartest thing to do is to say

12
10 auto bids for conference champion.
2 at larges

conference champions not in some sort of top 20 or top 25 lose their auto bid are converted to at large bids.


if you expand the playoff the wrong way you ruin the regular season. If you expand it the right way…Ohio state and Oklahoma state fans all of a sudden thing Utah state vs San Diego State is must see TV


go top 12 teams all at large and 20-30% of SEC games no longer matter in the regular season.

go 12 with up to 10 auto bids….really the only regular season game that loses importance is Georgia vs Alabama and that game already didn’t matter for Georgia’s playoff hopes anyways.
 


Some guy said:
12
10 auto bids for conference champion.
2 at larges
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Exactly, because this way it makes the regular season MORE meaningful. If you want in, win your conference.
 

discochris said:
Exactly, because this way it makes the regular season MORE meaningful. If you want in, win your conference.
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I do think that there should be a conversion from a conference champ if they don’t fall into some sort of predetermined formula top 25

Like the BCS computers top 25
If they don’t, extra at large
 

the whole point of a playoff is to try and improve the possibility that the best two teams in the country actually meet in the championship.

In a lot of cases, I think that the #2 team in a P5 conference is going to be a better team than the regular-season champion in a G5 conference.

FWIW - for 2021, here were the G5 champions
AAC - Cincy
CUSA - UTSA
MAC - Northern Illinois
Mt West - Utah State
Sun Belt - Louisiana

and the runner-up teams in P5 conferences

ACC - Wake Forest
B1G - Iowa
B12 - Oklahoma State
Pac 12 - Oregon
SEC - Georgia

Outside of Wake Forest, I think you can make a case that the P5 runners-up are better than the G5 Champions.
 

Hopefully it's OK it throw this "idle chatter" in this thread.

https://thespun.com/more/top-stories/paul-finebaum-suggests-3-other-schools-join-the-sec

In an appearance on WJOX-FM in Birmingham Wednesday, Finebaum suggested top programs around the country could begin to look for “an exit strategy” if College Football Playoff expansion talks continue to stall. He believes that the SEC will be more than happy to offer sizable deals to schools willing to jump ship and join the power conference.

“When Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC back in the summer, I thought that was it (for realignment.) I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think the SEC is in such a strong position and I think the world of college football is so upside down based on the attitude like Jim Phillips, Kevin Warren from the Big Ten, and George Kliavkoff from the Pac-12 that I think others are going to look for an exit strategy,” Finebaum explained. “Instead of wasting time inside of the College Football Playoff, you have some major universities going ‘you know what, what good is this doing us staying in our league that refuses and will not accept change? Let’s call the SEC, see what the dollar amount is and get out of where we are.”

Finebaum went on to name three schools in particular that could seriously entertain a move to the SEC: Notre Dame, Florida State and Clemson.

“If you’re sitting there in a Notre Dame position, why do you join the ACC with that approach?” he asked. “And if you’re Clemson or some of these other schools — Florida State in particular — you have to be asking yourself ‘why don’t we join a super league and really say who cares what the rest of college football does? We’re joining the only conference that matters.'”
 




Some guy said:
The worst thing about the media on this issue is that they reported they were close 6 months ago when they were not close

They were in agreement they should have discussions. That doesn’t mean they are close
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National media coverage of college football generally seems to be 60-80% “wishful thinking” on the part of those who cover the sport. With guys like Finebaum (above) it’s precisely 100%.

The likeliest scenario all along is that the CFP would stay at four teams until the current contract expires. And it may be just as likely that the CFP dissolves at that time than it is that it expands.

Looking at the outrageously large viewership of even the most seemingly irrelevant bowl games, I cannot figure out why ESPN seems to be the only interested buyer.

FBS football is the second most valuable live content for sale to broadcasters, and #3 isn’t even in the same universe.

There is no law that ESPN will effectively have a monopoly on college football content forever.
 


Goldmember said:
National media coverage of college football generally seems to be 60-80% “wishful thinking” on the part of those who cover the sport. With guys like Finebaum (above) it’s precisely 100%.

The likeliest scenario all along is that the CFP would stay at four teams until the current contract expires. And it may be just as likely that the CFP dissolves at that time than it is that it expands.

Looking at the outrageously large viewership of even the most seemingly irrelevant bowl games, I cannot figure out why ESPN seems to be the only interested buyer.

FBS football is the second most valuable live content for sale to broadcasters, and #3 isn’t even in the same universe.

There is no law that ESPN will effectively have a monopoly on college football content forever.
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They aren’t expanding because ESPN has a contract they don’t want to break up. The conferences outside the SEC want it tore up and set more like the basketball tournament with auto-bids and all networks bidding.
 



MaxyJR1 said:
They aren’t expanding because ESPN has a contract they don’t want to break up. The conferences outside the SEC want it tore up and set more like the basketball tournament with auto-bids and all networks bidding.
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And then you get SEC bobos like Finebaum writing trash like above, because they don't want to see the power of that conference marginalized.
 

discochris said:
And then you get SEC bobos like Finebaum writing trash like above, because they don't want to see the power of that conference marginalized.
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Exactly. Finebaum makes his bucks on the SEC. He wants more SEC all the time.

The best thing that can happen to the sport is to break ESPN's grasp and distribute power among the conferences, not make the SEC stronger.
 


Since the play off began until now has there been one team left out of the Final Four that a ghost of a chance in beating the eventual champion?
This year I think the four best teams in the country were in the final four.
Why expand it?
 

Plato said:
Since the play off began until now has there been one team left out of the Final Four that a ghost of a chance in beating the eventual champion?
This year I think the four best teams in the country were in the final four.
Why expand it?
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2 reasons.

#1 - Money. More "Playoff" games mean more money in rights fees, and the networks can charge more for commercials.

#2 - it ends all the arguments from teams that claim they got jobbed because another team with a similar or worse record made the playoffs and they didn't.

with a 4-team playoff, there are usually 1 or 2 teams at least that can claim they deserved to be in the field.

if you go to 8 or 12, that ends the arguments. it's a lot harder for the #9 seed or the #13 seed to claim they could have won the title if they had been included.
 

Who really cares about the arguments made by those who support teams of lesser quality?
No matter how many teams are added, those excluded will still bitch and moan.
I am not sure it will mean more money to the participating schools than the usual bowl games provide.
 


I don't know if I agree about ND, but FSU and Clemson would seem to resemble the SEC far more than the ACC schools.

But if they added even just those two, you'd have the following "mega-programs" -- in terms of dollars generated and/or winning games/titles -- all under one roof:
Texas
Texas A&M
OU
LSU
Tenn
Bama
Auburn
Georgia
Florida
FSU
Clemson

Point being: how can they "feed all those mouths" if they only get 1 or 2 bids to a playoff each year?

Finebaum may be an asshat, but there may well be an underlying point that eventually can't be ignored: the SEC might have start their own playoff in order to get the number of "bids" that they need each year?
 

People who don't understand why there's a push for playoff expansion probably also don't understand why an Oklahoma team who dominated the B12 would want to become just another school in the SEC or why the SEC would want a subpar Texas team. It's 100% financially driven. They do not care how competitive it is as long as they're getting rich. Some general fans can't seem to grasp it.
 

Plato said:
Since the play off began until now has there been one team left out of the Final Four that a ghost of a chance in beating the eventual champion?
This year I think the four best teams in the country were in the final four.
Why expand it?
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The very first year TCU and Baylor left out.
UCF was literally declared national champ and an official ncaa selector

but that’s not the point at all I don’t think
 

Gophers_4life said:
I don't know if I agree about ND, but FSU and Clemson would seem to resemble the SEC far more than the ACC schools.

But if they added even just those two, you'd have the following "mega-programs" -- in terms of dollars generated and/or winning games/titles -- all under one roof:
Texas
Texas A&M
OU
LSU
Tenn
Bama
Auburn
Georgia
Florida
FSU
Clemson

Point being: how can they "feed all those mouths" if they only get 1 or 2 bids to a playoff each year?

Finebaum may be an asshat, but there may well be an underlying point that eventually can't be ignored: the SEC might have start their own playoff in order to get the number of "bids" that they need each year?
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The SEC really bad at math.
If you put the best 20 teams in the country all in the same league….10 of the top 20 programs in the country are finishing under .500 in conference every year.
I’m not sure they’ve thought of that yet.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
They aren’t expanding because ESPN has a contract they don’t want to break up. The conferences outside the SEC want it tore up and set more like the basketball tournament with auto-bids and all networks bidding.
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I was trying to make two mostly unrelated points.The second being that no one else but ESPN seems to be interested in broadcasting post-season college football for some reason.

There’s all this talk about multiple networks bidding for an expanded CFP. But it seems unlikely the winning bidders would include anyone other than ESPN. And ESPN doesn’t even bother putting the CFP or Rose Bowl on ABC.

The other networks had a excellent opportunity to bail out to the San Francisco Bowl this year, but they didn’t.
 

Goldmember said:
I was trying to make two mostly unrelated points.The second being that no one else but ESPN seems to be interested in broadcasting post-season college football for some reason.

There’s all this talk about multiple networks bidding for an expanded CFP. But it seems unlikely the winning bidders would include anyone other than ESPN. And ESPN doesn’t even bother putting the CFP or Rose Bowl on ABC.

The other networks had a excellent opportunity to bail out to the San Francisco Bowl this year, but they didn’t.
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I am going to go ahead and disagree with your statement that is bolded.
 

FOX pays quite a bit for college football content. I think they'd bid on a piece of the CFP.

At least.

And you never know who might step up, until you do it. Maybe someone like Amazon comes out of left field?
 

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/c...at-calls-it-an-eat-what-you-kill-environment/

Bob Bowlsby explains his preferred Playoff format, calls it an 'eat what you kill environment'​

Bob Bowlsby has been in the middle of the College Football Playoff expansion talks, and has made his position clear as the sport looks for a new postseason model.

“I continue to believe that the 12-team model is the right model,” Bowlsby, the Big 12 Commissioner, said on Sirius XM. “I don’t think 8 goes quite far enough, and there are others who believe that way as well.”

Bowlsby said there’s great debate about automatic qualifiers regardless of record or rank for each of the autonomy conferences, which is fine for the Big 12, he said. Bowlsby also believes that the 6 highest-ranked conference champions ought to get the initial berths in the Playoff.

“That’s sort of an eat-what-you-kill environment,” he said. “I do think that the plan that came out in June was well-received and even among media pundits, I think it received very little in the way of legitimate criticism.”

Bowlsby admitted that he’s frustrated with where the Playoff stands now, in a stalled position. But admits that the group must get back to the table and figure it out.

“The irony of all of it is 18 months from now we’re going to be up against a hard time deadline because we’re going to be getting to Year 12 and there isn’t a Playoff past Year 12,” he said. “We will end up with an expanded Playoff, I don’t think there’s any question about it.”

The only question that remains is the timeline for when the change comes, he said.
 

^^^ interesting thing is that the new Big XII (without Texas and OU) could be the P5 most at risk to miss the playoff if the new model is indeed the top 6 ranked conference champions.
 

Gophers_4life said:
^^^ interesting thing is that the new Big XII (without Texas and OU) could be the P5 most at risk to miss the playoff if the new model is indeed the top 6 ranked conference champions.
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Interesting enough if they do 6 auto bids it will mean Iowa state has an easier path to a playoff appearance than Texas and Oklahoma

auto bids do something I would love…incentivize smaller conferences
 

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