I have designed a college football playoff system that preserves most elements of the current Bowl system (bleah) and has a sixteen-team playoff that determines the undisputed champion, on the field. My system should satisfy both the dyed-in-the-wool bowl supporters (bleah) and those who thirst for a playoff (:D). In the process, it will increase TV revenues and thus increase revenues for the teams who compete in it, the bowl committees, the host cities, and the casual fan (if the casual fan enjoys making a friendly wager, that is :D). Here’s how it works…
Let’s say that, hypothetically, when the 2002 regular season ends the BCS Top 25 rankings look like this:
[ul]
[li]1 Illinois[/li][li]2 Ohio St[/li][li]3 Indiana[/li][li]4 Iowa[/li][li]5 Michigan[/li][li]6 Michigan St[/li][li]7 Missouri[/li][li]8 Nebraska[/li][li]9 Oklahoma[/li][li]10 Arkansas[/li][li]11 Kansas[/li][li]12 Florida[/li][li]13 Florida St[/li][li]14 Miami[/li][li]15 Auburn[/li][li]16 Penn St[/li][li]17 Georgia[/li][li]18 Wisconsin[/li][li]19 UCLA[/li][li]20 USC[/li][li]21 Texas[/li][li]22 Miami of Ohio[/li][li]23 Notre Dame[/li][li]24 Tennessee[/li][li]25 Ole Miss[/li][/ul]
Now, we take the top 16 teams and enter them into a sixteen-team playoff. But here’s the beauty of it: each game in each round of the playoffs is paired with a bowl game and played in that bowl game’s host city. For example, the Sublimina Bowl committee in Crawford, TX negotiates with the NCAA for the rights to the 1 vs. 16 game in the first round. Thus, in the first round of the playoffs, Illinois will play Penn St. in the Sublimina Bowl in Crawford, TX.
Under this sytem, each bowl committee will negotiate with the NCAA for the rights to which game in which round. Thus they could also negotiate such things as sponsorship packages and TV coverage. Needless to say, bowl committees with more money to wave around, or more clout, would get rights to games in the later rounds, or to more signifigant games in the first round. For example, a 1 vs. 16 matchup is likely to draw more viewers than, say, an 8 vs. 9 matchup. So in this case, the 1 vs. 16 matchup might be something along the lines of the Liberty Bowl while the 8 vs. 9 matchup might be the Hula Bowl.
The seven major bowls (Sun, Orange, Fiesta, Peach, Sugar, Cotton and Rose) would go to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. The championship game would be the Rose Bowl.
So let’s carry the hypothetical 2002 season further…
The first round begins on Friday, December 6th, 2002. The weekend of December 6th and December 7th is a busy weekend in college sports, because there are three games on Friday night and five games on Saturday. On Friday night #1 Illinois plays #16 Penn St in Liberty Bowl on ABC. #4 Iowa plays #13 Florida St. in the FedEx Bowl on ESPN, and #8 Nebraska plays #9 Oklahoma in the Hula Bowl on ESPN2. On Saturday, the remaining teams play in the Outback, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Sublimina and Gator Bowls.
The second round of the playoffs is Saturday, December 14th, 2002. The winner of the Liberty Bowl plays the winner of the Outback Bowl in the Peach Bowl. The winner of the Amazon.com Bowl plays the winner of the FedEx Bowl in the Fiesta Bowl. The winner of the Microsoft Bowl plays the winner of the Sublimina Bowl in the Sun Bowl. And the winner of the Gator Bowl plays the winner of the Hula Bowl in the Cotton Bowl.
The third round of the playoffs is Saturday, December 21st. The winner of the Peach Bowl plays the winner of the Fiesta Bowl in the Sugar Bowl, and the winner of the Sun Bowl plays the winner of the Cotton Bowl in the Orange Bowl.
The winner of the Sugar Bowl will play the winner of the Orange Bowl for the championship, in the Rose Bowl, on New Year’s Day (Wednesday, January 1st, 2003).
The remaining nine teams in the BCS top 25, and any unranked teams to get invitations, can play in any lesser bowl games that didn’t manage to secure rights to playoff bowl games.
In this system, teams that advance in the playoffs can earn more money for their schools by competing in multiple bowls. TV ratings will go up because the games will actually mean something, and because people who don’t give a rat’s ass about college football under the current system (people like me :D) would be drawn to the games. And, of course, a sixteen-team playoff bracket just *begs for office-pool wagering, which would draw even more interest to the games…
Note that this system preserves the rights of bowl committees to maintain their traditions, and make their money, by hosting a bowl game in their host city.
So there’s my system. I now officially open it up to the Teeming Millions for analysis.