Think about this outcome: Major League Baseball announces that a committee will select teams for post-season play. Division winners aren’t guaranteed a spot because there are more divisions than playoff slots. Committee members will analyze the teams and announce which teams get in.
Courtesy: 2014sports.net
That would never happen, of course. In competitive sports “the integrity of the game” isn’t just a matter of what happens on the field during games, it includes how the competitive system is organized and administered.
In MLB all teams and players know how the competitive system is organized. And it’s never a moving target. The only question is which team will get home-series designation in The World Series (the answer: which league—NL or AL—wins the annual All-Star Game).
All of this is done transparently and through competition on the field. That’s the way sports systems need to be organized. They shouldn’t be jimmied to suit preferred outcomes—of leagues, owners and clubs, fans, and TV networks. Things need to be settled on the field according to pre-determined rules.
Thankfully, all major sporting systems are organized that way with one exception: big-time college football.
I don’t buy the politicized reasons given by the NCAA, member conferences, and participating institutions about why the current system is the way it is. One reason looms over all others: MONEY.
Money is the lifeblood of a collegiate football system. Loads of it are required – not just to grow the system, but to keep it afloat. Post-season play (in football and basketball) provides a lot of it.
Most colleges need help balancing the athletic books. Subsidies (from student fees, general fund allocations, and other sources) are needed to manage finances at most of America’s public colleges—especially at lower-tier colleges.
The University of Alabama-Birmingham decided to drop football recently for financial reasons. Over $20 million of the Blazers’ $30 million dollar annual athletic budget comes from subsidies. UAB’s president also estimated that it would cost about $40 million dollars over five years to remain competitive in Conference USA. The prudent option, he thought, would be to fold the program.
The costs-exceeds-revenues scenario at UAB isn’t unusual, although the decision to drop football is. According to USA TODAY athletic subsidies at America’s public colleges totaled over $2.4 billion dollars last year. (Yes, that’s with a “b.”) In my home state (Michigan) athletic subsidies at Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Western Michigan summed to $62 million dollars in 2013. Athletic subsidies constituted 80% of the EMU athletic budget.
University need funding sources and that’s one reason there are so many bowls games. In 1961-62 there were only 12 bowl games. Today there are over 30 bowl games and over 70 teams playing. Back then, invitations came as a result of excellence on the field: even “minor bowls” featured exceptional teams (e.g., 1962 Liberty Bowl: #14-ranked 7-3 Syracuse vs. 7-3 Miami, FL). Today, teams with just 6 wins can go bowling—12 of them finished 6-6 this year—and a 13th team, Fresno St., had a 6-7 record.
Courtesy: riceowls.com
Schools need the bowl money. Corporations and TV are the sources. Back in 1961-62 none of the bowls was named after a corporate sponsor. Today all bowls carry sponsors’ names. My favorite: The Duck Commander Independence Bowl.
To give you a glimpse into the amount of money involved, read this quote from a December 2012 article in USA TODAY: “Under terms of a 12-year rights deal with ESPN which is set to begin with the 2014 season, the 10 FBS-level conferences will reap $470 million annually. But according to a person with direct knowledge of the playoff’s revenue distribution plan, that doesn’t account for revenue – mostly from tickets and merchandising – from the championship game, which will be owned and operated by the as yet unnamed successor to the Bowl Championship Series. The person, who provided details to USA TODAY Sports, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.”
Yes, “sensitivity.” And it’s the reason why we don’t have a more objective, pre-determined system for selecting teams for the national playoff—a system like the one recommended in my last column (based on independent voting from the press through the AP Poll).
Courtesy: duckcommander.com
Problems occur when a committee makes decisions.
In my last column I offered interpretations about why TCU dropped out of the Top 4 and Mississippi State, rather than Michigan State, got the Orange Bowl bid. On Selection Sunday neither outcome was well-explained. Four days later here’s what Jeff Long, Committee chairperson, told ESPN about the MSU swap:“We went back and looked at Mississippi State and Michigan State and really, when we started that clean sheet of paper, the fact that Mississippi State had two top-25 wins really caused us to look at those rankings and rank them differently. When Mississippi State has four top-25 victories, along with four other victories against winning programs or bowl-eligible teams and Michigan State had zero, and they have four against .500 or better teams. So that’s really what swayed us to make that change.”
That explanation seems reasonable, especially when you factor in a politically shrewd decision: the Committee would start each week with a “clean slate.” But questions abound when rankings change—unexpected, surprising, and at the last-minute—and those changes yield “benefits” to certain teams and leagues.
It’s unlikely that last-minute shifts would have occurred had independent voters made the call. Instead a group of NCAA insiders sat around a table and talked it through.
That approach opens the door to all kinds of unsavory activity, things you don’t want affiliated with collegiate sports. One of the most distasteful aspects: some schools hired public relations firms this year to make their case. Baylor did it (to lobby for inclusion in the Final Four) and Marshall did it (seeking to get a bid to one of the big-money, “New Year’s 6” bowl games).
In the end, what did we get with the Football Playoff System? We got a different paradigm about how teams get to the post-season. It’s a system where a group of insiders answer the question: “Who’s In?” That would never happen in any of America’s major pro leagues.
The way to change the system is by voicing strong objections and demanding change. But coaches and ADs need to careful about criticizing the system: they are “members of the club” with careers to protect. Only Baylor’s Art Briles raised a huff this year.
Courtesy: sportsblogs.star-telegram.com
But others are speaking out. Some in higher education are calling for the end of the NCAA as we know it. And, just this past weekend, The New York Times ran an article on actions in Congress that could lead to establishing a Federal Commission that would oversee college athletics.
What about college football fans? Most fans either don’t care or they don’t think it’s an important matter. So I wasn’t surprised to read the results of an on-line readers’ poll recently conducted by M-LIVE, a statewide newspaper service in Michigan. Readers were asked if they thought Michigan State was treated fairly in the Committee’s final vote. Over 70% of 3500 self-selected respondents said “yes” or “it doesn’t matter.” Only 30% responded “no,” that the outcome was “manipulated” by the Committee (language used by M-Live).
No outrage there. No boiling up of emotions for change.
Fans seem to be tolerating the system as it’s configured currently–a conclusion that’s likely influenced by whether they think their favorite team is being treated fairly and/or is benefitting from the system as-is. If true, that outcome plays right into the hands of the NCAA elite. Elites count on acquiescence. No change comes with passivity.
Courtesy: dailysportsfantasygrind.com
If you’re a traditionalist like me, though, then you prefer another way of doing business: the old-fashioned way. Set the rules up front and, then, let teams play their way into the post-season.
That’s the way it’s done in the pros. It’s the way big-time college football should do it.
Let the chips fall where they may, not where you want them to fall.
