BCS System Attracts TV Viewers

'07 Football Media45

While some seem to enjoy flights of fancy, I much prefer fact-based posts and analysis. Unfortunately, a recent entry here on the BCS system showed once again that there are alot of opinions floating around, but frightfully few facts. So I thought that this article was particularly interesting because we actually get a few facts:

In the debate over whether college football should switch to a playoff system, Goren speculates that such a change would temper the enthusiasm that bubbles from fans and players associated with BCS bowls…

Ratings for the championship and the other BCS games have varied depending on the matchup and the competitiveness of the contest. Last season’s Orange Bowl between Louisville and Wake Forest drew a 7.0; the Rose Bowl between Southern California and Michigan on ABC earned a 13.9. The title game between Ohio State and Florida received a 17.4.

“The reality is the BCS games are as well-received and as popular in viewership as anything out there,” Goren said.

This year’s college basketball championship game drew a 13.2. The World Series averaged a 10.6, and the NBA finals averaged a 6.2. The four NFL playoff games on Fox last season averaged a 19.9.

So what are some of the key positions in the BCS vs playoff debate?

We know that school presidents are against a play-off system in college football for reasons that don’t really stand up to logical analysis. (I’m sure that we’ll see these reasons expounded upon again between now and the championship game.)

I suspect that AD’s (and to some extent the school presidents) are against a play-off system because the BCS system has proven immensely profitable. Any change to a successful system might turn out to be an improvement and might not. But once you institute a play-off system, you can never go back. So I expect that there is a good deal of sentiment to not tinker with a system that is definitely not broken financially.

If the BCS bowls are popular, then you would be silly to think that a college football playoff would not be popular as well….probably even more popular. But now comes for the tough part…increased viewers are great, but will that automatically translate into more money for the schools?

Do the networks want a playoff system to replace the BCS? Maybe…..maybe not. The network that gets to broadcast the games would certainly have increased viewership. But how much would this network have to pay to secure the rights? Would they be able to charge enough for commercial time to recoup the initial purchase price? So once again, we find a scenario where a known financial situation is exchanged for one with alot of unknowns.

Lastly, I suspect that the BCS corporate sponsors pour serious money into the current system. This money goes in at least two different directions….directly to the bowl committees and to the TV stations in the form of commercial time. It would be really, really interesting to see if any of the articles from now through the championship game give any insight into exactly how much money the BCS corporate sponsors pour into the current system.

– My contention is that the money from the BCS corporate sponsors will be mostly (or entirely) lost if a playoff system is started. Getting a feel for exactly how much money we are talking about would give some indication of how easy (or difficult) it would be to improve on the current system from every aspect.

So what’s my purpose for rehashing all of this? I hope that our readers will use the comments to record the URLs for any articles that come up over the next six weeks with real facts concerning finances of the current system, any financial projections for a playoff system, comments from school presidents and/or athletic directors, and any comments from network executives about the BCS or a proposed play-off.

Also please add any points of view that I may have overlooked. As I said in the beginning, I’m much more interested in discussing facts and the conclusions that can be drawn from those facts. Arguing opinions, preferences, and speculation will never lead anywhere….but sometimes facts can lead somewhere useful.

We already have one entry that some have used to expound on flights of fancy. Please keep those types of comments on that entry. Also, please don’t repeat your comments from the original thread.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

'07 Football Media

45 Responses to BCS System Attracts TV Viewers

  1. VaWolf82 12/05/2007 at 3:04 PM #

    I think the big losers of a playoff system aren’t necessarilly the Orange, Rose, Fiesta and Sugar Bowls – any playoff system will likely include them as final 8 sites.

    We disagree on this point. I just do not think that multiple play-off rounds at neutral sites will produce sell-outs. Comparions to NCAA basketball invariably over look the relative size of the FB/BB venues and the fact that there are always more than two schools buying tickets.

    Neither the NFL nor I-AA uses neutral sites for anything other than the Super Bowl. I think that I-AA even uses the home field of one of the two teams for their championship game (or at least they used to).

  2. noah 12/05/2007 at 3:07 PM #

    “Note that implied in my response is the idea of using the bowls in some form or fashion for a playoff system. I didn’t make that clear before.”

    Never. Ever. Ever. Going to happen.

    Next time you see a bowl scout, bring that up.

  3. VaWolf82 12/05/2007 at 3:20 PM #

    Don’t believe me, just look at your game preview post. A lot of good numbers, but missing the qualitative analysis that determined the game.

    Ok, I reread my previews and think that you are wrong. Please show me what you were talking about. Here are the links to the previews that I did over the second-half of this year:

    Quick Look Ahead

    Quick Look at Miami

    Around the ACC

    UNC Preview

    Wake Forest Preview

  4. Dr. BadgerPack 12/05/2007 at 4:55 PM #

    A lot of the major bowls produce sellouts due to the “home team effect”– there are regioinal tie-ins that are usually honored with the Rose, Sugar, Orange etc. Heck, LSU get’s a “home game” for the national freaking championship.

    Any playoff would have to include “fairness” provisions ala basketball– can’t play in home sites, etc. Then financially you are talking about diminished regional interest, and for the respective universities large increases in travel costs. Eventually you will reach the point of diminishing (or even decreasing) returns. This doesn’t even bring up added insurance and medical costs with the added prospect of 3 more games. Large schools can probably handle this. But what if, say, Hawaii makes a playoff. Or a Boise St. Will the playoff be cost prohibitive? Will the NCAA foot the bill (and if the NCAA would have to do this, why the heck would they want to even consider a playoff).

  5. RedTerror29 12/05/2007 at 6:11 PM #

    There’s no reason a play off HAS to include a “fairness” provision. Nor do I think it should.

    Perhaps the biggest obstacle is, even if the BCS conference commissioners DID want a playoff (and it has to be them that makes the push), the current system is a patchwork of TV deals and bowl tie-ins. How to unravel that to a point you could insert a playoff (assuming an attempt to keep as much of the current format as possible) would be problematic (see my earlier comment about the requirement for financial wizardry).

  6. Dr. BadgerPack 12/05/2007 at 6:18 PM #

    The “fairness provision” would be needed if any semblance of the original bowl structure is to be maintained. Imagine the outcry if 8 seed USC gets 1 seed, say, Miami… in Pasadena. Scrap the bowls, play playoff games at high seeds home fields and you could mitigate a portion of the travel costs and probably guarantee sold out stadia.

  7. TomCat 12/06/2007 at 1:17 AM #

    The Solution: Congress announces the creation of Collegiate Football Commission which institutes the following mandates. 1.) Announce 2012 as the final season in which bowls and TV contracts will be amended to recongnize the pending beginning of the Division 1A Collegiate Playoffs in 2013.
    2.) A 16 Team Playoff will follow a 11 game season for all teams in D1A. Playoff teams will be all conference champs and the highest ranked wildcard teams. The next ranked 16 teams below the top teams will compete in bowl games (similar to the NIT) as a consolation.

    DONE….. playoffs – as is done at EVERY level of EVERY team sport in America.

    You obviously missed the part where I asked for flights of fancy to not be posted here….though this might qualify as a nightmare instead. Further “proposals” will be deleted from this entry.
    VaWolf82

  8. GoldenChain 12/06/2007 at 10:14 AM #

    “I just do not think that multiple play-off rounds at neutral sites will produce sell-outs. Comparions to NCAA basketball invariably over look the relative size of the FB/BB venues and the fact that there are always more than two schools buying tickets.”

    Do the current bowls do not sell out? I will suggest that of the 32 bowls that less than 50% will be sold-out. It doesn’t seem to stop them from putting games on ESPN2. When State played in the Muffler Bowl a couple years ago tehre were what? 55k people in a 78k stadium?

    So what’s your point?

  9. GoldenChain 12/06/2007 at 10:25 AM #

    GOOD GRIEF, YODA TALK!! I meant ‘Do the current bowls sell out?’ In fact I would not be surprised if the number of sell-outs is less than 25%.

  10. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 10:51 AM #

    No one is talking selling out the Blue Carpet Bowl or the Tire Bowl….what happens there is rather meaningless to the discussions of BCS bowls vs play-off.

  11. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 10:53 AM #

    Mostly opinion piece, with a few facts of interest:

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-greenstein01dec01,0,7372215.story

    College football also has never been more popular. You can base that on a ton of recent examples, namely attendance (the Big Ten set a conference record with 41 sold-out games), ratings (an all-time high 2.03 million people tuned into ESPN’s “College GameDay” last Saturday) and media coverage (back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers).

  12. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 10:57 AM #

    Interview with BCS coordinator and Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive.

    http://www.bcsfootball.org/cfb/story/7517952

    In the Rose Bowl, the PAC 10 champion automatically into the Rose Bowl, and then Illinois was selected at large.

    The Sugar Bowl had Georgia at large as its host institution, and then the Orange Bowl has Virginia Tech as its host institution. The Fiesta Bowl has Oklahoma as its host institution.

    The Rose Bowl had the first selection as a compensatory selection when they selected Illinois at large because they had lost a team to the championship game.

    The Sugar Bowl then had a compensatory pick and picked Georgia at that point.

    Then we move into the selection order. The Orange Bowl had the first selection and selected No. 8 Kansas to play Virginia Tech.

    The Fiesta Bowl had then the next selection and selected West Virginia.

    And, finally, the Sugar Bowl had the last selection. Took Hawaii that was an automatic qualifier.

    So Hawaii fell to the last BCS bowl….hardly surprising.

    I’m surprised that the Orange passed on a VT-WVU game.

  13. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 11:08 AM #

    More from the same article

    Q. If you do consider a plus one, procedurally what happens from here? When do you bring it up? Does it come up for a vote? You mentioned the table in April. What would have to happen?

    MIKE SLIVE: I think it starts out with some conversations amongst the commissioners and then I think people will all of us who are looking at it, you know, have to decide whether or not it’s something we think, after looking at it, it has significant value and worth bringing in, and then ultimately working through that process.

    It’s a decision made by each conference. Each conference votes what it thinks. Internally it brings to the table what it thinks is appropriate for the format, and then we would see what would happen there.

    But each conference has to decide for itself. That would really mean I think when I speak of the conference, I’m really talking about, you know, the recommendations and thoughts of the athletic directors for the presidents to make the final decision.

    Q. It wouldn’t happen until after this FOX TV contract is over?

    MIKE SLIVE: For two reasons. And, again, remembering as we talk about this that the FOX contract is four years and the ABC contract is eight. It would seem to me that not only do we need to finish the FOX contract, but it would take that long to work through a process if there were to be a change.

  14. noah 12/06/2007 at 11:16 AM #

    I imagine that the biggest beneficiaries of a playoff system would be all of the other programs at the bottom…say…sixty programs in D1. Afterall, you’d be a complete fool if you continued to spend close to half of your annual funds on a program that stood no chance of ever competing for the postseason.

    As it stands right now, pretty much everyone other than Temple (which really ought to stop doing its Terry Schiavo impression and just die) can realistically sell to its fan base the expectation of a post-season birth at some point in the next 10 years. Go to a playoff system and you WILL kill the bowls and you WILL eliminate half of the football schools from contention.

    We haven’t won a league title in 28 years. EVERYONE in the ACC has won one since we last did. UNC hasn’t won the ACC in 27 years. Do either of these teams really seriously expect to win (not compete, but win) the ACC in the next…say…five years? Not really.

    Had a playoff system been in place during that time, there’s no way they’d continue to pour good money after bad, wasting everyone’s time, building signicant capital structures, hiring very expensive coaches and very expensive staffs.

    They’d simply defund the program, and very slowly, people would drift away. C-F and Kenan would be approaching the end of their useful lives (because no renovations would have been done) and they would be replaced with on-campus venues more like Riddick Stadium.

    Football would be something more like a club sport.

    But, hey…at least it would be like the NFL.

  15. noah 12/06/2007 at 11:18 AM #

    BTW, I meant to explain the thing about the beneficiaries….instead of wasting money on a football program, you’d be spending more on all of the other athletic programs. You’d no longer have one program that consumed half of your resources every year. Even if people didn’t give as much, you’d still have more to spend on everything else.

  16. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 11:44 AM #

    Go to a playoff system and you WILL kill the bowls

    There are currently five major BCS bowls (10 teams) and the minor bowls are doing OK. So I find it hard to imagine that an 8-team playoff would have any impact at all. A 12 or 16 game playoff would have some effect on the second tier bowls….Peach, Cotton, etc. but how would the effect spread further than that?

  17. noah 12/06/2007 at 12:27 PM #

    Well, we don’t have a playoff now. So basically, it’s #1 vs. #2 and everyone else gets to say the same thing, “We went to a bowl.”

    If there’s a playoff, “going to a bowl” will mean nothing and they’ll disappear.

    It doesn’t matter. Like I said earlier, this is like talking about cold fusion. It’s a good way to kill an hour or so. But it’s never going to happen.

  18. bTHEredterror 12/06/2007 at 4:20 PM #

    Sadly (IMO), you are correct. Financial interest, behind every advance and decline in society.

  19. choppack1 12/06/2007 at 9:04 PM #

    Noah – if the NIT has held on – bowl games will hold on too. They’ll just be like the NIT – less popular. Like NIT, the bowl games will be more important to schools who haven’t experienced a great deal of success recently, pulled a decent season out when it looked bleak or for mid-major schools.

    I do think middle of the Pack schools will be negatively impacted by playoffs because their fans will quickly get tired of being irrelevant on the national scope.

    Think about our b’ball attendance last year – statistically, it was good, but if you were at the RBC – well, that’s another story. Think about it so far this year.

  20. VaWolf82 12/06/2007 at 11:34 PM #

    I do think middle of the Pack schools will be negatively impacted by playoffs because their fans will quickly get tired of being irrelevant on the national scope.

    I don’t get this line of reasoning at all. Teams playing in the Gator/Champs/Tire bowl etc were never in consideration for the national championship…are never relevant on the national scene. How does a playoff change that?

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