COLLEGE FOOTBALL
UF President Will Unveil Playoff Proposal
Published: May 29, 2007
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GAINESVILLE - As confetti rained on him on the floor of the Georgia Dome on Dec. 2, University of Florida president Bernie Machen realized he had to act. His school's football team had just won the Southeastern Conference title to cap a 12-1 season, but the Gators' national title hopes would be decided by the two sets of poll voters and six computers that determine the Bowl Championship Series rankings.
"I'm thinking, 'Wait a minute. We just won the Southeastern Conference. We ought to be packing our bags for Arizona,'" Machen recalled during an interview in his office Wednesday. "Instead, we were wondering what the BCS was going to do."
Florida did ascend to No. 2 in the BCS rankings, and the Gators did throttle Ohio State on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz., to win the BCS national championship game. Still, Machen couldn't forget the feeling that gripped him on the Georgia Dome floor. So on Thursday at the SEC's spring meetings in Destin, Machen will unveil his playoff plan to his fellow conference presidents. The short version: Form a limited liability corporation that, like the BCS, would work outside the framework of the NCAA. Try to utilize the current bowl structure, but distribute revenue to all 119 Division I-A schools instead of keeping most of the money for the schools in the six "power conferences." The market, Machen said, would determine whether to play an eight-team, 16-team or "plus-one" format.
SEC presidents have made no promises, but they have agreed to listen. Machen isn't the first to pitch a playoff, but never before has the current national champ's president done the pitching.
Even if Machen's SEC colleagues agree with him, the idea would face stiff resistance. Supporters of the bowl system - for more than 100 years the preferred postseason format - believe that despite assurances from playoff proponents, bowls cannot exist within a postseason tournament. No matter who prevails, the debate should make fascinating theater, and it should give college football fans something to talk about until the first set of helmets collide in August.
'Not Going To Sway Us'
Machen believes money eventually will convince his fellow presidents to embrace a playoff. He said the current system doesn't generate as much revenue as it should, especially considering college football's massive popularity. He points to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which brings in $545 million in television rights fees from CBS each year. Fox's contract with the BCS to televise the Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta bowls and the BCS national title game pays $83 million a year. That contract runs through 2010, and Machen hopes presidents will consider a playoff before agreeing to a new deal.
"There may be - and you won't know this until you test it - $100 [million] to $200 million that's not on the table right now," said Machen, who said he has spoken to media consultants about the dollar figures.
Jim Wheeler believes Machen's math is wrong. Wheeler worked with a Swiss company called International Sports and Leisure in the late 1990s. The company, which has since gone bankrupt, offered about $375 million a year ($3 billion over eight years) to stage a 16-team playoff. Later, the company amended its offer to $2.5 billion for an eight-team playoff.
"The money is there," said Wheeler, who now runs the Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Oklahoma's college of business. "That's the easy part. [Machen's figures] will be surpassed if there's a true playoff."
The hard part, Wheeler said, is convincing bowl loyalists to accept a playoff. They don't come more loyal than Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.
"A hundred million dollars is not going to sway us," Delany said in a telephone interview Friday, "when $2 billion didn't."
Delany wants to keep intact his conference's 60-year-old tie-in with the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Under the current BCS format, the Big Ten and Pac-10 champs meet in the Rose every year except when one or both makes the BCS title game.
Machen hopes that if the other nine "bowl subdivision" conferences agree to support a playoff, the Big Ten and the Pac-10 would cave to pressure from their own fans.
"We may do it without them," Machen said. "My approach would be that the other conferences and schools would devise a playoff system, and we'll see if the Big Ten and the Pac-10 can stay outside of it. … With a lot more money on the table and a true playoff system, they're going to say 'Sorry, we're going to Pasadena?' We'll see."
Wheeler isn't sure Machen, who as interim provost ran the University of Michigan during a presidential search that lasted from 1995 to 1997, remembers the power of the conference in which he once worked.
"If he thinks he can round up the troops and bully the Big Ten," Wheeler said, "I'd buy some popcorn and watch it."
Delany said "a supermajority" of the Big Ten's 11 presidents would vote against a playoff. Ohio State president Karen Holbrook said as much in January during a joint news conference with Machen before the Buckeyes played the Gators.
In the Atlantic Coast Conference, Florida State president T.K. Wetherell has said he supports the idea of a playoff, but not all his colleagues agree. At the Big 12 spring meeting last week, Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman told reporters that conference presidents would oppose a multi-round tournament but may be open to the idea of a "plus-one" format that would match the top two teams after bowl games are played. University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft did not respond to a request for her opinion on the matter. SEC commissioner - and current BCS coordinator - Mike Slive said in March that college presidents would have to evaluate playoff models before the BCS negotiates its next contract.
Bowl Officials Oppose Plan
At a meeting last month in San Francisco, bowl executives reaffirmed their opposition to any playoff system. Outback Bowl CEO Jim McVay and Rose Bowl CEO Mitch Dorger each said during telephone interviews last week that a playoff would fundamentally alter the bowls.
When playing in a bowl, the CEOs said, teams typically arrive a week in advance, and players enjoy the best aspects of the host community through organized events. In a playoff, teams probably would travel to the host city a day or two before the game and fly out immediately after. That, McVay said, would encourage a more professional atmosphere in an allegedly amateur sport.
"You treat college athletes like college athletes," McVay said. "If you expect them to perform like professionals in a playoff system, you'd better start paying them."
Dorger said fans probably wouldn't travel multiple times in consecutive weeks. He said that while college basketball fans travel as many as three consecutive weekends during the NCAA Tournament, the numbers don't translate.
"They wouldn't even fill one section of a football stadium," Dorger said.
Among leaders from the major bowls, only Fiesta Bowl president John Junker has dared suggest a change might be in the works. Following last month's BCS meetings in New Orleans, Junker told The Arizona Republic that the "plus-one" format may be considered.
Made-For-TV?
When word leaked in December that he would propose a playoff, Machen received about 50 unsolicited playoff models from fans.
"Some of them were copyrighted," he said. "I threw them all away."
Machen saw the BCS from the other side as Utah's president from 1997 to 2004, and he thinks financial concerns will supersede other arguments. He counts on the support of the five conferences outside the BCS power structure. Though a recent tweak in the BCS system makes it easier for a team from the Mountain West, Western Athletic, Conference USA, Sun Belt and Mid-American conferences to qualify for a BCS bowl, those teams have little chance of reaching the national title game. And because only one team a year might crack the BCS, those conferences share little hope in reaping the financial rewards the power conferences enjoy on an annual basis.
The Big Ten's Delany worries a playoff would devalue the regular season, which he considers the most meaningful in all of sports. That could cause television networks to pay less to televise regular-season games. Delany, a former North Carolina basketball player, said the perception of the NCAA basketball tournament as that sport's only meaningful competition has caused the major networks except CBS to abandon the regular season.
Some of Machen's fellow presidents oppose a playoff on academic grounds. They don't want to add games during exam weeks. Machen dismisses this argument because the presidents approved a 12{+t}{+h} regular-season game before the 2006 season and because the NCAA sponsors a football tournament in Divisions I-AA, II and III.
Bowl officials fear a playoff would suck the life from a unique athletic experience. They believe interest would wane if the bowls were analogous to college basketball's National Invitation Tournament.
"It would become just a made-for-TV event," the Rose Bowl's Dorger said. "That runs counter to everything the bowls are."
Machen has heard those arguments before. He also knows many fans want a playoff, and he hopes public opinion can prod presidents to find a way to eliminate the feeling that gnawed at him in December.
"Even if we don't change," Machen said, "we're going to create an expectation that can lead to a better thing."
Reporter Andy Staples can be reached at (352) 262-3719 or astaples@tampatrib.com.
THE CASE FOR A PLAYOFF
MORE MONEY - MAYBE: UF president Bernie Machen said his research suggests a playoff would generate more television revenue, which would be split among the 119 Division I-A teams. He hopes the additional revenue would allow the NCAA to repeal the decision to play a 12th regular-season game.
BETTER GAMES: Knowing that one loss wouldn't crush their national title hopes, more schools would schedule interesting intersectional games. Instead of Florida-Western Carolina, fans might see Florida-Texas.
THE BOTTOM LINE: A national champion would be crowned on the field every season.
THE CASE AGAINST A PLAYOFF
TRAVEL TROUBLE: Incorporating the bowl system into a multi-round playoff would force fans to travel on two, three or four weekends in a short span. Imagine Florida State playing for the ACC title in Jacksonville, then playing a national quarterfinal in Atlanta, a semifinal in New Orleans and for the national title in Pasadena, Calif. How many fans would make all four trips?
TRADITION TRASHED: The 100-year-old bowl system would cease to exist as we know it, and higher-seeded teams would play home games in the playoffs. The rich would get richer thanks to additional revenue from additional home games.
SOMEBODY'S ALWAYS ANGRY: The 66th team usually gets pretty ticked when left out of the NCAA basketball tournament. Depending on the model, the fifth, ninth or 17th team would be just as angry at being left out of the football tournament. The debate would continue.
THE CASE FOR THE BOWL SYSTEM
THE REGULAR SEASON MATTERS: Under the current system, most regular-season games take on playoff-type intensity.
32 WINNERS: Under the current system, 32 bowl teams end their season on a high note. That typically helps recruiting and fundraising. With a 16-team tournament, 15 of the nation's best teams end the season as losers.
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT: Players in bowl games get a week of fun provided by communities who treat them like kings. In a playoff, teams would fly in Thursday or Friday and fly out Saturday night.
THE CASE AGAINST THE BOWL SYSTEM
BEST DON'T ALWAYS MEET: In 2003 and 2004, the best teams did not play one another in the BCS title game. LSU should have played Southern California in 2003, and undefeated Auburn should have played USC in 2004.
LITTLE GUYS NOT WELCOME: Though last year's tweaks have made it easier for a team from outside the six "power conferences" to play in a BCS game, those teams have no realistic chance of competing for the national title.
BRING ON THE CREAMPUFFS: Certain power-conference schools - hello, Florida - seek to protect their rankings by scheduling woefully inferior opponents.
OTHER PLAYOFF SCENARIOS
A look at how the 2006 postseason might have looked using other playoff models:
PLUS-ONE
•No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 4 Southern California at Rose Bowl
•No. 2 Florida vs. No. 3 Michigan at Sugar Bowl
•Rose Bowl winner vs. Sugar Bowl winner in national title game in Glendale, Ariz.
EIGHT-TEAM PLAYOFF BRACKET
•No. 8 Wake Forest (ACC champ) at No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
•No. 5 USC (Pac-10 champ) at No. 4 LSU (at-large)
•No. 7 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ) at No. 2 Florida (SEC champ)
•No. 6 Louisville (Big East champ) at No. 3 Michigan (at-large)
(Semifinals and final played at rotating bowl sites)
