Back from vacation...READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:34 pm

Hugo:
 
 You´re the purest of the purists, enjoying college football for the pageantry and matchups. Nothing wrong with that.
 
 But the schools´ insistence on clinging to the antiquated bowl system and flawed BCS system doesn´t come down to the gallant notions of tradition and pageantry or ensuring the "student" portion of "student-athlete." It comes down to one thing: The desire to hoard filthy amounts of money.
 
 BCS-enabled conferences and schools make stupid amounts of money, ensuring they will remain the true powers of college football. You´ll never see a guy like a Tom Crean resurrect Marquette in Division I college football because mid-major conferences and schools aren´t a part of the BCS.
 
 So you can say all you want about pageantry and tradition in college football, and I respect that. But the fact is, there´s no greater caste system in any college sport than in Division I college football. And unlike college hoop, the have-nots never get a chance to topple the haves and prove they belong.
 
 And sadly, I think my beloved Syracuse and the Big East may fall into the have-nots category for football after this current BCS contract expires.
 
 Take care,
 PK

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 2:15 pm

PK;
 
 I could not agree with you more. Of course it is all about the cash (the bowl game system that is). See, my problem is that I don´t see a playoff as all that much better than the BCS- it could never be more than 3 or 4 rounds (if that long) which means there will still be a few ´haves´ and a ton of ´have-nots.´ Plus those kids don´t want 3 or 4 tough games added on in December and January; they want to stay healthy and cash in with a fat rookie signing bonus.
 
 I foresee a day when the ratings of the bowl games (thanks to the glut of silly, new, second-rate ones and the lack of significance placed on all but the one BSC title game) get so low that they have to consider a playoff just to boost TV ratings. That day may be far, far away, but I think it will come, as long as there continue to be like 25-30 bowl games. It´s the only thing that would force the big conferences to even consider a playoff.
 
 I am incredibly disappointed in the ACC; Florida State was bad enough, now they are basically ruining what IMO made the conference great (in terms of competition) in exchange for sick amounts of cash. It is sad, and it pisses me off, but it is inevitable and I understand it. They simply have to get their foot in the BCS door before it´s too late.
 
 The big TV money is going to disappear in the coming years as advertisers chose to spend less money in TV and more money on new, more effective advertising technologies (like the internet and electronic billboards for example) that are becoming more econimocally efficient than TV advertising. (Thanks to the explosion of cable TV channels and technologies like TiVo and on-demand and eventually programming over the internet, penetration of TV advertising is not a shadow of what it was when the econimic system in TV advertising, which is still basically in place, was established.) The networks just won´t be able to pay the cash to support the obscene economics of big time sports. It may be ten years or more away, but I am convinced it will happen, and the big time sports will have to adjust. Already the ticket prices and concessions gouging is getting out of hand in order to compensate, and over expansion (all the new bowl games are to me analogous to the over expansion in the Big 4 pro sports) doesn´t help.
 
 I simply pine for simpler days when the big college sports were more about tough and fair competition and less about $$$$. Before my time, certainly, so maybe ´pine for it´ is not exactly an accurate phrase.