College Football Primer

[sabotai]

When it comes to college football, I'm pretty much a noob. I never really followed it until recently, and I have TCY to thank for that.

With all the recent conference moves, I'm curious. COuld someone explain what the business side of college football is? I keep hearing "Money for this, and money for that". Who gets money for the Bowl games and why? What exactly is the BCS (for a long time, I just thought it was a poll)? Why do teams change conferences?

[Easy Mac]

Originally posted by sabotai
When it comes to college football, I'm pretty much a noob. I never really followed it until recently, and I have TCY to thank for that.

With all the recent conference moves, I'm curious. COuld someone explain what the business side of college football is? I keep hearing "Money for this, and money for that". Who gets money for the Bowl games and why? What exactly is the BCS (for a long time, I just thought it was a poll)? Why do teams change conferences?

BCS - Bowl CHampionship Series. A group of 4 bowl games (Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose) that rotate the championship game each year. Mainly, the 6 to conferences are in collusion to monopolize 90% of the money made from college football (SEC, ACC, PAC, B12, B10, Big East). Supposedly, some weird computations occur with randomly assigned numbers that supposedly matches up the top teams in bowl games. "True" national championship, as opposed to the "mythical" of the past.

Basically, BCS money (Big Bowl) is split amongst the conferences of the teams involved. The teams in those bowls get a slightly larger share of that money. But it also allows for national exposure for your team. So it is more advantageous to in those conferences.

Also, teams are sometimes given a little extra money to travel to a lesser bowl if the team is bowl eligible (I think Clemson has been given some extra money to travel to the Humanitarian Bowl in Idafuck).

Just a little info, I'm sure someone with a PhD could flesh it out.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Here's a slightly less-biased answer to the question of "How does the BCS work".
http://www.foxsports.com/named/FS/CFB/Polls/BCS

Here's an older story that explains a little about "bowl money splits" and such.
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/sports01/081601_sports_bcs.shtml

And another on the same subject
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/sfc/sfcfs69.htm#readmore

And here's a little something something on the background of some of the conference switches
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/other/2003-05-21-expansion-faqs_x.htm

[sabotai]

So to make an anology...each conference could be thought of an individual business, and the BCS is like a partnership among several of the businesses?

[dawgfan]

Just a little background to what preceded the BCS:

The bowls and conferences are all independent entities. Prior to the current system, the bowls would work out contracts with conferences to set-up match-ups based on conference outcomes. For example, since the '50's, the Rose Bowl was a contest between the champion of the Big-10 and what became the Pac-10. Some of the bowls had one conference affiliation and one open slot. What would happen is, the bowls with an open slot or two would jockey near the end of the season to land the best available team they could. Due to the conference bowl affiliations, it was rare that the #1 and #2 rated teams in the polls would meet in a bowl game. A great example was 1991, when the undefeated Washington and Miami, FL teams did not play each other because the Huskies were obigated to go to the Rose Bowl. All of the backdoor wheeling and dealing of bowls and teams sometimes led to some odd matchups as pairings were finalized before the end of the season and upsets occured.

The BCS was created as a system to take 3 of the top bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, Orange) and rotate a championship game amongst them by pairing the #1 and #2 rated teams in the BCS ranking system. After a few years the Pac-10 and Big-10 acquiesced and the Rose Bowl joined the BCS championship rotation. Adjustments have been made pretty much every year to the BCS rating formula in response to complaints from the previous season. Essentially the BCS rating system combines the 2 major polls, a number of computer poll systems, includes extra credit for wins over "quality" teams, deducts points for each loss and comes out with an overall number - the lower the better.

As for the money, each bowl has a certain payout commensurate with the prestige of that bowl, based on TV/radio revenue and corporate sponshorships. That money goes to the schools involved. Some conferences have rules where all conference teams share equally the bowl revenue from conference teams (the Pac-10 is an example). All of the major bowls involved in the BCS alliance still have associations with certain conferences that apply when those bowls are not hosting the championship game - all of those affiliations are with the so-called "major" conferences, so a team like Marshall or Miami, OH have no guaranteed slot in a major bowl (with the commensurate major payout). In addition, the teams from the non-major conferences rarely are rated high enough in the AP or ESPN polls to be a factor in the BCS rankings, so they have little shot of making it as an at-large BCS team in the BCS bowls.

I'm not sure that the BCS has really reduced the ability of these smaller schools from getting into the major bowls, but with the increased attention given to the BCS bowls and the greater revenue associated with them, the stakes are higher than ever and thus the complaining you hear from these "lesser" conferences about the current system.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm not sure that the BCS has really reduced the ability of these smaller schools from getting into the major bowls, but with the increased attention given to the BCS bowls and the greater revenue associated with them, the stakes are higher than ever and thus the complaining you hear from these "lesser" conferences about the current system.

I think you've summed up pretty well how I feel about the complaints about the BCS.

The bottom-line is, as one of those linked articles put it, most bowls would rather have the 3rd or 4th place team from a big conference than the champ of a smaller conference. Never mind who could beat who on the field, the bowls sell tickets in their home market based in part on the reputation of the participants. And while I'm pretty sure Northern Illinois (for example) could kick the crap outta Notre Dame (for example) this season, which one would have sold more tickets to the Peach Bowl (for example) under the old system? Uh-huh, those gol-durned Irish, and they'd have gotten the bid too.

[HornedFrog Purple]

Originally posted by sabotai
So to make an anology...each conference could be thought of an individual business, and the BCS is like a partnership among several of the businesses?

Hmmm.. think of it this way.

Division 1-A football with 117 teams is the business. The BCS has the majority stock in the business. They pay out their dividends each year every year to all their members who do with it as they see fit from conference to conference. The BCS dictates who gets how much of the profit via guaranteed meetings each year. (with the 4 major bowls) Around the middle of the season the BCS produces a report that tells who is in line to attend the guaranteed meetings. This report requires a doctorate in mathematics to actually figure out.

The non-BCS (generally called mid-major) schools do not get that payout every year nor are they allowed to attend the meeting because they will never get enough votes to attend the meetings.

[dawgfan]

I tend to not have a huge amount of sympathy for the "smaller" schools. If you want to be ranked higher and given more respect by the bowls, polls, TV and BCS, do the following:

- Keep winning big on a consistent basis, year-in/year-out. Miami, FL wasn't a big national player30 years ago, but they started winning in a big way consistently and built their reputation over time.

- Join a major conference. Playing Podunk State Technical College every year doesn't do much for your national prestige.

- Schedule and beat big-name teams every year. If you're a smaller school, you won't get much credit going the Bill Snyder route and winning 10+ games by beating a bunch of no-names.

The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see the number of Div 1-A teams reduced as conferences expand and realign, with the top teams in the lesser conferences gobbled up by the majors and the other teams left by the wayside. Right now, it's hard to imagine schools like Idaho, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, etc. ever being big winners at the 1-A level. I think they'd really be better off in an expanded 1-AA level. Of course, it's hard to convince them of that - they're all reaching for that big money carrot being dangled out there...

[sooner333]

Here is a good article explaining the TV side of college football, giving a good historical background of why we are where we are today.

http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/6726219