System is doing fine if what you're after is profits for colleges. But how do
we know that a playoff system would not register even more attendance and even
more profits for colleges? More often than not one loss means you're done and I
don't think it's fair that a team that might be the best in college football
would be foreclosed from challenging for the championship because of one loss,
especially if the teams playing for that championship have lost themselves. I'm
not a Texas fan but how can anyone look at the system last year and say that was
fair? USC? Not my favorite team either but one loss to a team that won 9 games
and they are precluded from playing for the championship later in the season
when it looks like they could beat any of the teams still standing at the top.
Utah? They might not come from what most people would feel is the strongest
conference but all they did was win all their games. How exactly were Florida
and Oklahoma more deserving? Really.

BCS TV ratings are high, in my opinion, not so much because of the brilliance of
the BCS system but more so because college football is a huge rage in this
country and they have packaged the BCS very well -- not to be confused with
organizing it so that it is fair. Put a playoff together and I think we would
see comparable or better ratings than we have now.

So, yes, in response to your question, I am saying to these financial
executives, I mean college presidents that the system needs to be changed
because while these programs might fund the bulk of intercollegiate athletics,
the fans indirectly fund the programs in that their attendance and utter
zealotry fuels the phenomenon that is college football and creates the huge
financial opportunity for the colleges to derive huge rewards from sponsors -
and in the end the fans' satisfaction with the system should be considered among
those we deem most important.

Just because the system makes a lot of money and has huge TV ratings does not
mean it is a good system, especially when there is every reason to believe that
a playoff system would very likely provide more money and higher ratings on TV,
as well as spread the enthusiasm for the post season across to regions other
than the two from which the present competitors come from. When people say
things like "give me something better than combine the playoffs and the Bowls,
shorten the regular season, here is a 16 team playoff matrix,etc..." I ask first
that s/he explain what is wrong with doing that and I also wonder why it is that
we have to be satisfied without a system that provides a playoff? Anything can
be done if the will to do it is there. Just because it has been beaten to death
and shot down by self-interested financial behemoths in the past does render it
illegitimate either.

I don't pretend to have all of the answers but neither did Henry Ford and Thomas
Edison, or those patriots drafting the Constitution of the US, or those smart
guys who developed the internet -- all of whom were willing to try something new
so that the state of matters could perhaps get better. I just don't understand,
with due respect, this closed-minded approach to a serious deficiency in the
system.

MA


--- In collegebcs@yahoogroups.com, Jim Mengel <jmmengel@...> wrote:
>
> Your argument could use some explanation. What is it that needs to change?
>
> Under the system in place college football stages a 12 game regular
> season that demands championship contenders to play at the highest
> levels each week. There is little margin of error for performance
> whether the opponent is marginal or top shelf. Unlike any other major
> sport, college football stages a single championship game and 33
> "exhibition" games at the conclusion of the season. The BCS
> championship game is second only to the Super Bowl in TV ratings while
> a half dozen of the "exhibition games" outperform the NBA, MLB,and NHL
> championship telecasts.
>
> All of this has combined to sustain record levels of attendance and
> lucrative broadcast contracts in the regular season and proliferating
> Bowl games, er "exhibition games".
>
> And those football crowds pay the cost of most of the rest of the
> intercollegiate sports programs at the member schools, especially the
> unfunded federal mandates of Title IX.
>
> So are you suggesting to college presidents that this "old,
> antiquated and monopolistic" system needs to be changed just so a
> playoff can be instituted to determine the number one team in the
> country?
>
> Better come up with something better than "combine the playoffs and
> the Bowls, shorten the regular season, here is a 16 team playoff
> matrix,etc..."
>
> Those horses have been beaten to death.
>
> If you are going to change the present system you need to have an
> alternative that is better.
>
> jim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 10:49 AM, reidomo<mitch.agana@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > You guys all crack me up. Everybody's caving on a playoff system using the
> > same shopworn assertion that "every week is a playoff in college footie".
> > Please, spare me your regressive thinking. I disagree with the claim that
> > they are doing a good job, quite the contrary. Not picking on you Jason,
> > just finally responding to all of this mamby pamby NCAA Company Line stuff
> > about how the system is fine like it is. It is not fine, in fact it is old,
> > antiquated and monopolistic and it needs to be changed. It would be
> > complicated but it could be done. Do I have all the answers? No. But neither
> > does anyone else, most especially those in control of this system we have
> > now.
> >
> > Okay, rant is over now. Carry on. :)
> >
> > --- In collegebcs@yahoogroups.com, "Jason O'Mahony" <jayoshanks@> wrote:
> >>
> >> --- In collegebcs@yahoogroups.com, Alan Milnes <bcs@> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > 2009/6/10 Emmet O'Brien <obrienemmet@> wrote
> >> >
> >> > >
> >> > > >I agreed they should have a playoff system, like they do in others
> >> > > > sports
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> > So you would be happy to be like the NFL and have 32 teams playing the
> >> > regular season then contesting a play-off??
> >> >
> >> > Alan
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >> >
> >>
> >> Thankfully, I don't think we will ever see a playoff system in NCAA
> >> Football as long as the Bowl Committee are around.......and besides this
> >> ain't baseball or basketball...it's a wee bit more physical than that.
> >>
> >> The BCS aint doing that bad a job in my opinion, it's by far a better way
> >> of ranking the teams over the course of the season than deciding the
> >> championship on 2 or 3 major polls!
> >>
> >
> >
>