Well, it appears very much as if a playoff-centered college football postseason is finally about to become reality. And somehow, every legitimate bowl game will survive.
Remember when the proponents of the “bowl system” used to claim that a playoff would ruin what was true and pure and great about college football? Well, it’s remarkable, but it appears the man most responsible for the health and welfare of what will be 40 (yes, forty) bowl games this winter has declared the College Football Playoff’s proposed growth to 12 teams as not a substantive threat.
Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season, the trade organization that promotes the bowls, told The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman that he foresees no major downturn in the popularity of all the 11 games not involved in the CFP. That does not include quarterfinal and semifinal CFP games that will double as bowls:
“I think bowl games are still going to be as meaningful as they’ve always been. I don’t think you’ll see major changes. I really don’t.”
I suppose it depends on your definition of “major”. Some prognosticators believe ESPN, which created and runs 14 of the games, could pare as many as 6 to 10 of the off their ledger. They would, of course, be free to find sponsorships and networks to buy ad time and organize their events.
But, my question to all of you who devour trash bowl season as I do each December: If the bowl roster is sliced by half a dozen or more, will you miss the action? And I suppose, yes, that word could have a double meaning.
We don’t know for certain when and if the proposed changes to the Playoff will occur. They emanated last week from a “working group” of the CFP’s management committee. Bill Hancock, who handles its announcement and public relations, has maintained for years that the current 12-year deal scheduled to be complete after the 2025 season will be finished as has been composed – a 4-team playoff.
But, as I’ve said all along, the presidents of the Power Five conferences and the Disney executives run this show. And if they want to tear up the current deal and renew it in a 12-team format, they can.
And it’s been estimated the revenue bounce from such an expanded tournament could triple the total for all concerned. Everybody wins. Why wait?
Especially considering the gouge in profits that COVID wrought last season. Not to mention the chunk of endorsement revenue that could conceivably be chipped away from university athletic department coffers by imminent name-image-likeness legislation in the future. That is, endorsement deals from which players may profit that university suits won’t necessarily. That’s why the CFP is not just expanding but very likely tripling.
And yet, a separate engine revs for the product that is second- and third-tier bowl season. It’s not quite as Carparelli, a good guy in a tough spot, was required by his job to tell Dochterman, “that teams are going to be really excited for that postseason experience, especially for the seniors to have that last chance to play in a football game with their friends at an exciting destination.” Especially when the exciting destination is Shreveport or Birmingham or Detroit. That goes double for NFL prospects.
Nor is it the pride in taking home the trophy from the Guaranteed Rate Bowl or the Duke’s Mayo Bowl or the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl (and you think I’m kidding).
No, the motor is gambling. People love to wager on trash bowls. And not just individually, but as parts of office pools, parlays, you name it. That’s a bedrock source of viewership that guarantees advertising for the 48-to-54 half-minute ad blocks in an average college game, not including the halftime.
I guess something like, say, the Lending Tree Bowl might go away. If it did, it would be because ESPN wants to reallocate resources within the expanded CFP. But it won’t be going away because enough people won’t watch to keep it viable.
You and I could put on a bowl game between a couple of 4-8 teams out of the Sun Belt and MAC and play it in an ice storm at Hersheypark Stadium before a live gate of friends and family. But as long as it’s on basic cable, gamblers will find it and watch it to the end.
Coaches will love the extra practices and game, just as they always have, even if they’re trying out little-tested underclassmen more than they did. For fervid fans, there will always be the lure of that first extended play of a Trace McSorley, a la the 2015 Gator Bowl vs. Georgia. Except he’ll start instead of needing the excuse of an injury to the starter.
There will always be a place for lower-tier bowl games. They aren’t going anywhere, just like the NIT never went anywhere when the NCAA tournament expanded from 36 to 48 to 64 to 68 teams.
So, all this time, through the wingtip-dragging of the Bowl Alliance and the Bowl Coalition and the Bowl Championship Series and finally to the miniature playoff that’s capped FBS football the past seven seasons, we were eventually headed for a tournament that finally looks pretty much like all the others in every realm of team sport. We were told it would ruin the sport. We were told it would poison its purity. We were told the charm of the bowl system would be sacrificed for a callous revenue grab.
But you know now what all those warning bells really were. They were being clanged by people who weren’t necessarily looking out for the sport. They were simply alarmed that their piece of the pie would be shifted to somebody else.
True enough, I suppose. But that doesn’t affect the sport in the slightest. It is what it always was. And it will be what it is – a business run by businessmen to make a buck. Only maybe now, the young men supplying the product will be thrown a nickel, too.
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The bowls were never in danger from a playoff, and reaction to the 12-team CFP proposal is proof | Jones - PennLive
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