Wednesday, December 21, 2011

COCO LOCO:  I don't believe one can read Shaun Assael's ESPN Magazine piece on PlayoffPAC's attacks on the college bowl system's apparent abuse of nonprofit law and come away feeling good about the status quo. Thankfully, PlayoffPAC has posted many key documents online for your perusal.

7 comments:

  1. I just watched the Real Sports piece on this same issue last night. It ran in the early fall, but I'm just catching up. My favorite part was when the correspondent listed some of the outrageous salaries the bowl CEOs get for running one event a year in contrast to the CEOs of Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army with their year-round, countrywide initiatives. He asked the BCS lackey whether he thought the bowl CEOs really earned that money, and the lackey said something like, "Yes, because that's what the market demands." Ugh, really?

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  2. Benner11:34 AM

    i actually watched part of last night's beef 'o' brady bowl because it was (a) football and (b) on, and despite having a team from the state of florida the stadium was half empty.  (not half full, half empty.)  while the article focuses on BCS bowls and their negligible effect on any redeeming value, but what about the, shall we say, pointless bowls?

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  3. frinklin8:16 PM

    I'd feel a lot better about Playoff Pac if they actually had any desire to reform college athletics. They really don't, it's just a club to try and force a playoff system. 

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  4. isaac_spaceman11:10 AM

    I have never cared whether we had a playoff or a bowl system in football, and having not known that the bowls were supposed to be charities, I always just assumed that the guys (always guys, definitely) at the top were getting fat and lighting their cigars with $100 bills and subsidizing the Florida and Arizona golf industries.  Now that I know they're not paying taxes, I would prefer to send them all to jail (except the Rose Bowl officials, and why am I not surprised that the Rose Bowl actually does things right?), but I don't see what that has to do with playoff vs. bowl systems. 

    But the more I think about the system, the more I think that other than one major obstacle, the playoff system would be better for colleges.  It would be better because the NCAA could keep the money from the big games (instead of letting the bowls have the money) and return it to participating schools.  With all of the bloat in the bowl system, it's hard to believe that the NCAA wouldn't make more money with a tournament than it makes with the BCS system. 

    The obstacle is that you can't have a six-round tournament like you do in basketball, or even a four-round tournament.  Football is just not like basketball or volleyball, where you can add a bunch of games to the end of the schedule without significant attrition.  You can only play one game a week without killing your players.  Even a three-game tournament -- for only 8 teams -- would mean that colleges are playing nearly a full NFL regular season.  And most decent but not national-title-caliber schools would rebel, because an eight-team tournament would mean that if you lose a game or two early in the season, you have no hope of the post-season (unlike in basketball or volleyball, where just getting to the tournament, with the chance of an upset, is a reward).  I suppose you could have a combination playoff-bowl system, where the top 8 teams play for the title and the next 24 or so can play in 12 bowl games, but I'm not sure anybody would be wild about an 8-team playoff. 

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  5. Benner11:20 AM

    I've always liked the idea of a six team playoff, a la the conference playoffs in the NFL.  Top four conference winners (Big 10, Pac-12, Big 12, SEC) and two wild cards.  If length of season is a key issue, it could always start later.

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  7. Duvall12:51 AM

    <span>The obstacle is that you can't have a six-round tournament like you do in basketball, or even a four-round tournament.  </span>

    FCS, Division II and Division III have five-round NCAA tournaments every year without incident.

    The chief obstacle to a playoff is the unwillingness of the Rose Bowl fetishists in the Big Ten and Pac-12 to support a playoff.

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