Luke Bolanos & Zach Larson Fall 2013 SAM 6070 (02) Financial Aspects in Sport Dr.

Shin 10-29-2013 Case Study: A Closer look at the new College Football Playoff System, is it really better? The Problem There has been much debate and discussion, ever since the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system for college football has been used to determine a National Champion at the end of the year, over the accuracy and fairness of this system. Consequently, a new system has been drawn up, created, and will be implemented starting next year. This new system is the College Football Playoff. In this case study, we will take an in-depth look at this new College Football Playoff system and how it is replacing the BCS Bowl system. We will also be examining why there has been need for this change within college football and both the pros and cons of the new College Football Playoff. Just because a new College Football Playoff system for college football has been created and will be implemented next year, doesnt mean all the arguments and debate over the fairness and accuracy of who gets to play in the College National Championship each year will subside. In fact, much controversy has been met by the new College Football Playoff already even though it doesnt start until next year. Meanwhile, the controversy continues for the BCS, on whether or not this old system should be kept. In order to understand this problem in its entirety, we must study the BCS system that has been in place for college football. The BCS system has been in place for the past 15 years since 1998, with the BCS Standings being created in 1997. Originally, the BCS Standings took into consideration four

Bolanos & Larson 2 elements when developing the rankings, they were: subjective polls of writers and coaches, the average of computer rankings, the teams records, and the strength-of-schedule index based on the records of teams opponents and its opponents opponents (Bowl Championship Series, 2013). Today, the BCS Standings are comprised of the following three components, each weighting one-third: the USA Today Coaches Poll, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, and an average of six computer rankings (Bowl Championship Series, 2010). The BCS is an end of the year college football showcase of sorts, featuring the Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, and the much coveted National Championship Game. Within the BCS there are 10 conferences: the American Athletic, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-12, Southeastern, and Sun Belt. Six of these conferences have automatic qualification into one of the BCS bowl games upon winning their conference, these conferences are: the American Athletic, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, and Southeastern. Additionally, the champions of selected conferences are contractually committed to playing in selected BCS bowls. The winner of the Atlantic Coast Conference plays in the Orange Bowl, while the winner of the Big Ten and the Pac-12 both play in the Rose Bowl. The winner of the Southeastern Conference plays in the Sugar Bowl and the winner of the Big 12 plays in the Fiesta Bowl. Now of course if any of these conference champions qualify to play in the National Championship Game, then a replacement team is selected to play in the given BCS bowl game. The non-automatic qualifying conference champions earn a spot in a BCS bowl game if they are ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings or they are ranked in the top 16 of these standings and its ranking is higher than that of an automatic qualifying conference champion. Any Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team, including independents, can earn an at-large bid

Bolanos & Larson 3 into a BCS bowl if there is still an open spot after any conference champions have been selected and they meet the criteria of: winning nine-regular season games and are among the top 14 teams in the final BCS Standings. Now, no more than two teams may be selected from any conference to play in a BCS bowl unless tow non-champions from the same conference are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the final BCS Standings. The BCS National Championship Game is played between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the final BCS Standings (Bowl Championship Series, 2013) . As one can see, this BCS system for choosing a yearly National Champion in college football can be quite confusing. It also can be interpreted as unfair to certain conferences and often times, people think that teams get left out of the National Championship Game that should be playing for the title. For the past few years now, some sort of college football playoff system has been mentioned by many, suggesting that the old BCS system should be done away with. On Tuesday, June 26th, 2012, a new college football playoff system became official as a committee of university presidents approved a four-team playoff system to start in the year 2014 at the conclusion of the 2014-2014 college football season (The Associated Press, 2012). The name of this system was chosen and this April was released with the new name being, College Football Playoff, the Bowl Championship Series will no longer exist. The new championship game format that will award a National Champion will be held for the first time on January, 12, 2015. The new post-season playoff format creates two national semifinals that will be played on New Years Eve or New Years Day, with the winners advancing to the national championship game. There will be six bowls in the playoff rotation, creating four marquee, BCS-type bowl games on New Years or New Years Day during the seasons they are not hosting a national semifinal (The Associated Press, 2013).

Bolanos & Larson 4 The six bowls that will be in the annual rotation will be: the Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl; with the semifinals being played at two of these six bowls every year. The No. 1 team will play the No. 4 team in one semifinal and then the No. 2 team will play the No. 3 team in the other semifinal. All ten of the BCS conferences will be included in the College Football Playoff, along with the other four FBS independent schools: Army, Navy, BYU, and Notre Dame (College Football Playoff, 2013). If having a national college football playoff system itself was not a drastic enough change, the new College Football Playoff will feature a selection committee who will choose at the end of the college football regular season, those four teams to appear in the College Football Playoff Semifinals. Earlier this month, the College Football Playoff chose the selection committee along with the Chair. The selection committee includes about 230 years of combined college football experience and the committee members were chosen based on five categories of experience: (1) coaches, (2) student-athletes, (3) administrators, (4) journalists, and (5) current athletic directors. The following are the selection committee members and their previous experience: Barry Alvarez, director of athletics, University of Wisconsin Lieutenant General Mike Gould, former superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy Pat Haden, director of athletics, USC Tom Jernstedt, former NCAA executive vice president Oliver luck, director of athletics, West Virginia Archie Manning, Ole Miss quarterback and all-pro NFL quarterback Tom Osborne, former head coach and director of athletics, Nebraska

Bolanos & Larson 5 Dan Radakovich, director of athletics, Clemson Condoleezza Rice, Stanford University professor, former Stanford provost and former U. S. Secretary of State Mike Tranghese, former commissioner of the Big East Steve Wieberg, former college football reporter, USA Today Tyrone Willingham, former head coach of three FBS institutions

The Chair of the College Football Playoff is Jeff Long, vice chancellor and director of athletics for Arkansas. Some things are still in the works, like the exact timing of meetings throughout the season of selection committee members, but this committee will meet several times in person to evaluate teams and develop interim rankings. At the end of the year, the committee will meet during selection weekend and then will officially announce the pairings for the actual playoff (College Football Playoff, 2013). Now, we know that much controversy and argument has been met with the BCS selections over the past few years about which teams get selected to play in the National Championship Game, so this new system has been created. However, now many critics are coming out and giving reasons as why the College Football Playoff system should not be actually implemented in selecting teams to play for a national championship, but rather the old BCS system should remain in place. Some critics claim that the BCS system should remain in place because all the discussion and debate that the selection process creates with the general public is good for the game and part of college football. Many analysts are claiming college football is headed in the right direction with the playoff system, however, four teams are not enough and more teams should be added into the playoff system. This brings up a very

Bolanos & Larson 6 interesting point and we will touch on this more later. Some other pros of getting rid of the BCS system are no more automatic qualification for conference winners, no more computer based rankings, and no more watered-down competition with so many teams being bowl eligible every year. Conversely, there are those who say the new playoff system has its downfalls in things like too many repeated matchups from the regular season and there being much less importance for teams in playing other bowls outside the playoff (Fitzgerald, 2012). The controversy and debate of the whole college football format can be summed up in this question, should a playoff system be used to figure out the national champion or should the BCS system continue to be used? Analysis We are going to analyze the College Football Playoff, studying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of this new system. Taking a look at each aspect of the College Football Playoff, let us first start with the strengths of this system. The one thing that jumps out as really good is the balance of competition in competing for a national title. No longer will it just be between two teams, but now the No. 1 through No. 4 teams will have an equal shot at winning the national title. Additionally, whichever team does win the national title, you know will really deserve it as they have to beat two top four teams to win the title. This new system will also create a much more exciting bowl season for college football fans, as there are now semifinals to the national championship game, showcasing a total of three high-stake games in addition to the other four major bowl games. The team and conference who wins the national title game will be generating much more revenue as they now will be playing in a national semifinal and then a national title game, similar to how the NCAA Basketball Final Four works.

Bolanos & Larson 7 There are some weaknesses to the college football playoff as the selections of the teams who get to play in the playoff are chosen by the selection committee. Although they will have access to many statistics and opinions, this leaves room for much human error and bias. Some of the committee members are current athletic directors at major conference schools, with the Chair of the College Football Playoff being the Athletic Director at Arkansas. An interesting weakness to the college playoff system is the risk of injury to players. Because there will be two teams competing in both the national semifinals and then the National Championship Game, this will mean the players on those teams will be playing an extra game than normal after their regular season has ended and they will not be receiving much rest in between these two playoff games. Many players will be looking forward to the NFL draft and there draft stock could be greatly reduced with an injury in one of these games. When thinking about opportunities for the College Football Playoff, many people can profit from the system and revenue can be increased. The playoff system can generate more revenue for a specific conference, as one conference may now more easily have two teams competing against each other in the national title game. The profits from having their two best teams in the national title game will be much greater than having one in the national title game and one in another BCS Bowl. Some years, a conference may have two schools in the playoff semifinals and then have another school playing in one of the major bowls as well, this could generate a significant amount of revenue. Another strength is simply there being now three huge national title implication games, with the two semifinal games and then the National Championship Game. This will create a lot of revenue for everyone as the playoff games will be set on a national stage. The teams playing in the playoff games, the conferences, the channels

Bolanos & Larson 8 broadcasting the games, and all the additional advertising will all greatly benefit in generating revenue. We finish out our analysis of the College Football Playoff with the threats from outside the system. Although this system is supposed to benefit college football overall, dominance by a single conference may be elevated. One conference may now have two teams in the college football playoff every single year and then those two teams end up playing for the national title. In addition, the same conference may also have another team competing in one of the other major bowl games. This next threat may seem a little far out for now but it could become real as NCAA athletes in college football are becoming more and more focused on their professional careers playing careers. Players who are playing for teams selected to play in the playoff may want to rebel against their team and the playoff system by sitting out the games, in fear of becoming injured and drastically hurting their NFL draft stock. The reason being because there is higher potential for them to become injured when they may be playing two additional games after the Christmas break, and both those games being played within a two week period. Lastly, the College Football Playoff could hurt the other major bowls by taking away some of their prominence and prestige. We have already seen it with some of the recent bowl games, as some coaches, schools, and teams have much higher expectations than winning the bowl game they got placed in. These teams may have been in the running for one of the playoff games but instead are selected to play in one of the major bowls, they then show not as much effort to win the bowl game. This could hurt the prominence and prestige of the major bowl, with not as many fans showing up to support the team and teams not desiring to win these bowl games as much as in years past.

Bolanos & Larson 9 Solution Scenarios We came up with three scenarios to our problem. All of which have several strengths and weaknesses. We will examine each scenario from top to bottom and after reviewing all the scenarios we will choose what we believe is the best solution for our core problem. Our first scenario is to leave things the way they are and continue using the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system. The BCS system was implemented prior to the 1998 season largely in part to end split championships. The BCS standings as they are often referred too are used to choose ten ranked teams each season to compete in five bowl games called the BCS bowl games. The BCS standings are calculated by averaging three components: the Harris Poll, the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, and the average of six computer rankings. After the regular season, the top two teams in the standings compete for the national championship with the winner being crowned the national champion. Ever since its implementation in 1998 it has only caused controversy. Prior to the BCS, the top two teams only met in the national championship 14% of the time. With the help of the BCS, this number has risen to 80%. The BCS is doing something right, however critics argue the computer rankings are wacky, unreliable, and at times preposterous. The BCS was put in place to pit the two best teams against each other and also unanimously crown a single champion. How does one know who the best team is when a team with one loss plays in the championship game instead of a team that is undefeated? This happened to the University of Utah in 2004 and 2008, and it also happened to Boise State University in 2006. Or in 2004, what happens when three BCS schools go undefeated (Auburn, Oklahoma, and USC)? Oklahoma and USC played for the national title but who is to say they are the better two teams and not Auburn?

Bolanos & Larson 10 Even though the BCS was created to recognize one national champion, the 2003 season saw two champions; LSU and USC. Our second option is to implement a four team playoff system. A committee consisting of 13 individuals would select the four teams, similar to how basketball selects the teams for March Madness. The individuals on the committee will have extensive knowledge of the game, its history and rules and how the BCS system currently works. The members will consist of explayers and coaches, current athletic directors, and anyone worthy of the tremendous responsibility given to them. Instead of the top two teams playing in the national championship game, the top four teams would play in a single elimination playoff. The number one seed would play the number four seed, and the two and three seeds would play each other. The two winners would then play for the national championship, with the winner being crowned the national champions. The strengths to this format include more human power. The committee can use the computer rankings as part of their decision but the rankings will not matter nearly as much. The committee will meet several times throughout the season to discuss their thoughts on the rankings and talk about where each team sits in their respective minds. Strength of schedule will become an important factor along with head to head matchups. Teams are encouraged to add tougher games to their schedule and the regular season should feature more favorable matchups. The creation of the playoff system is estimated to generate between $600 million and $1.5 billion in television revenues. Almost every other college sport consists of a playoff to determine a champion, including FCS football, division II and division III football.

Bolanos & Larson 11 The downfalls to this scenario are teams will be playing more games, including tougher, hard fought games. With four teams making the playoffs, there will still be a considerable amount of teams left out of the playoffs which can still cause debate of who really should have made the playoffs. The first round of the playoffs will switch between BCS bowls every few years. For example, the Rose Bowl which is usually the Pac-10 and Big-10 winner could be a playoff game featuring an SEC and ACC team hypothetically. Tradition can be lost and other bowl games could lose their value. Since the SEC is very strong, it is very possible they could have two teams playing in the championship game. Fans outside of the SEC could lose interest and ratings could drop significantly. With the committee being run by ex-players and coaches as well as current athletic directors, it is possible they could be bias towards the teams they are or were associated with. Our last scenario is similar to our last option. However, instead of a four team playoff we would implement an eight team playoff. A lot of the strengths and weaknesses would be identical to a four team playoff system. A committee would still choose the eight teams. There would be less debate for the teams who barely missed out. Odds are if a team just missed the playoffs they probably are not worthy to be considered a national champion contender. Eight teams would greatly enhance each teams odds of making the playoffs. The playoffs would be more competitive and there would be a higher chance for an underdog to win a national championship. Players would be at a greater risk to injury with an increase in the amount of games played and could possibly hurt their future careers or value for the NFL draft. Another weakness could be if all the top teams lose immediately and the championship featured two teams with a

Bolanos & Larson 12 lower fan base or even two teams with two losses. It may take some getting used to but we see it all the time in sports. For example, its not uncommon for a wildcard team to win a World Series or the Super Bowl. Those teams deserved their title and they won the games when they mattered the most. It could help teams generate more revenue and allow them to recruit better players. Recommendation After analyzing all the options, we choose solution three as the best option. It eliminates most of the debate about who made the playoffs and who didnt. With more games of higher significance, revenues can greatly increase. Teams can gain a more prestigious name for their university. Winning a national title will require a few hard fought wins when it matters the most. Who wouldnt want to see a non-major conference school win three games in the playoffs en route to a national championship when most people say they dont match up to teams of the SEC and Big 10?

References

Bowl Championship Series. (2010, January 21). BCS standings. Retrieved from BCS Football: http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=4819686 Bowl Championship Series. (2013, October 8). BCS chronology. Retrieved from BCS Football: http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=4819366 Bowl Championship Series. (2013, July 25). BCS selection procedures. Retrieved from BCS Football: http://www.bcsfootball.org/news/story?id=4819597 College Football Playoff. (2013). College Football Playoff. Retrieved from College Football Playoff: www.collegefootballplayoff.com College Football Playoff. (2013, October 14). College Football Playoff: The Selection Committee. Retrieved from College Football Playoff: http://www.collegefootballplayoff.com/story?id=9825420 Fitzgerald, M. (2012, November 30). BCS System vs. Playoff System: Debating the Pros and Cons of Each Format. Retrieved from Bleacher Report: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1427564-bcs-system-vs-playoff-system-debating-thepros-and-cons-of-each-format McMurphy, B. (2013, October 18). Jeff Long to chair committee. Retrieved from ESPN College Football: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9834426/college-football-playoffselection-committee-officially-announced ProCon.org. (2012, September 18). College Football. Retrieved from ProCon.org: http://collegefootball.procon.org

Rubin, R. (2013, October 19). Potential problem with College Football Playoffs isn't committee but system. Retrieved from New York Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/score-panel-fine-system-ain-article1.1490603 The Associated Press. (2012, June 29). Presidents approve four-team playoff. Retrieved from NCAA: http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2012-06-26/presidents-approve-fourteam-playoff The Associated Press. (2013, April 24). College Football Playoff set to replace Bowl Championship Series in 2014. Retrieved from NCAA: http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2013-04-23/college-football-playoff-setreplace-bowl-championship-series-2014