Seven Reasons A College Football Tournament Is Bad For Fans
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by Dan Lewis
It's December. What does that mean? The sports cause du jour is "hey, we need a college football playoff!" The best one follows this common theme: Take all eleven conference champions and five at-larges, and have them play in a four round tournament. There's an excellent example of those types of bracket here. Take a look, because I'll be referring to it.
Why sixteen teams? We already know that a two-team "tournament" -- that is, the status quo -- is unworkable. A four-team tourney is as well, and facially, a thirty-two team tournament is way too long. The only other option is an eight-team tournament, but assuming (as we should) that each major conference gets an automatic bid, it won't work. How do I know? Because that leaves only two at-large bids -- which is the situation the BCS put us in until 2006. That is, the two at-large bid structure was already rejected as a tried-but-failed bad idea.
You'll also note that I'm not a BCS advocate, at least not as the system is now. I am an advocate of the "plus-one" system. Specifically, I believe in a system I outlined a year ago. Any one who replies to this with "well, give us a better idea than a tournament!" or "well, it's better than the BCS" better learn to read. Thanks.
Onto the list.
7) When will the games be played? No schools want to play during finals -- that's why December is bowl month. Each team plays one game, which is unlikely to interfere with the players' exam schedules. Realistically, the most teams a tournament can support is eight -- which is probably pushing it. Eight teams would require either a December and January game (bookending exam weeks) and then a championship game in early-to-mid January; or a three-week tournament starting on or around New Year's Day, thereby extending well into the NFL playoffs. The NCAA (via the BCS) has done a brilliant job of navigating around the NFL playoffs thus far, and no one wants a Thursday night title game. A sixteen team tournament isn't realistic, and an eight team bracket pushes the envelope.
Both of these options are bad for fans. The last thing we need is more controversy over whether athletes are students first, and we also don't want to have the tournament butt into the NFL playoffs. Need an example for the latter? Easy: The first two rounds of March Madness are watched with focused intensity, but the Final Four are muted by the sound of baseball's Opening Day.
6) Four weeks is way too long. Stemming off that last point: By the time March Madness rolls into early April, tournament fatigue has set in, and outside of core college basketball fans and followers of the Final Four teams, interest in the tournament wanes Need evidence? Without looking, name the final Four from last year. If you can get three, you're in the minority. But if you can remember a Cinderella of recent years -- George Mason, anyone -- you're probably not. That's partially because George Mason's magic was worked when attention on the tournament was high.
5) No Cinderallas Allowed. Which leads me to my next -- and final basketball-related example. Take a look again at the likely 16 team bracket we'd have this year. You'll note two things: Eleven major-conference powerhouses (including Kansas) and five minor-conference champs. Of the latter five, all but two -- Hawaii and maybe BYU -- have any chance whatsoever of winning a first round game. But that does not a Cinderella make; no, it'd just be an upset, and those come all the time. See, for example, App State over Michigan or Stanford over USC. What we'd need to get is two wins -- and Hawaii beating both USC and LSU would be a rare occurrence, if ever. (Kansas over West Virginia and Ohio State could happen, but really, is that all that inspiring?)
4) Going Undefeated in a Minor Conference Would Be Meaningless. We already know that Hawaii would, probably, be a 10 seed in our format. That means they get USC in round 1, and (absent a crazy catastrophe), LSU in round 2. Yikes! Way to treat the only undefeated team in the nation.
But imagine that Hawaii played USC in the regular season and won, but lost to Boise State. The Boise State Broncos would be your WAC champs, and Hawaii? You be the judge: Who gets that last tournament bid -- a 3-loss Florida or a 1-loss Hawaii? Before you decide, remember this: In 2005, TCU went 10-1, with a loss at SMU in week two, but a win at Oklahoma in week one. They finished 14th in the BCS, which would have put them out of the tournament had they not won the Mountain West. The way I see it, Hawaii is out.
So let's instead say that Hawaii plays USC in the regular season -- and loses. They get the #12 or #13 seed as the best or second-best minor conference champ. In other words, they face Georgia or Oklahoma in round one, and the other in round two (barring an upset). Shockingly, Hawaii is better off having lost to USC. That's a quirk specific to 2007, sure, but the fact remains: As a minor conference team, all that matters is winning your conference title. Your non-conference games are meaningless exhibitions. Yay for fans of those teams.
3) In Fact, Good Minor Conference Teams Would Find It Even Harder To Schedule Out of Conference Games. Meaningless, per #4, if you can even schedule them. My bet is you can't.
Let's rewind to early fall. You are the athletic director the University of Michigan. App State and Hawaii both come calling, asking to come to the Big House. You choose App State. Why? Because you know that a loss to either will all-but end your title hopes, and go with the safer bet. (Even if it didn't turn out too well.)
Most tournament advocates argue that such logic is eviserated by a tournament, because one or even two losses will not end your season. They also miss the big picture: money. Even with their loss to App State, Michigan could have easily made it to a BCS game -- all they had to do was win all the rest of their games, with an allowance for one loss in the Big Ten. Really -- Illinois made it at 9-3; a 10-2 Michigan team could have also. (However, note that the same 9-3 Illinois team did not make it to our tournament.) And a three-loss team would have a very hard time making the case for its inclusion in a field of 16 if one of those losses were to a minor conference team.
Missing out on the Fiesta Bowl or Rose Bowl sucks -- but it's relatively inexpensive, as the Conference shares the bounty from it. While I'm sure that Michigan, financially, is better off in the Rose than they are the Capital One Bowl, that gain is probably less than a a tournament Bid. Why? Because with potentially four games being played (versus one if you receive a bid to the, say, Outback Bowl), there is more reason to give more money to the teams actually playing the games.
2) And Forget the Marquee Regular Season Games. In the same vein as #3 comes this, strikingly powerful point. Earlier this year, LSU and Virginia Tech faced off, with LSU proving victorious. A matchup of two major conference powerhouses makes a lot of sense under the current (and my hypothetical) regime, for two reasons. First, the winner gets the resume line that distinguishes them from the rest of the pack, and in the current system, the difference between #2 and #3 is astronomical. For example, this year, one can credidbly argue that had LSU not played VTech, Oklahoma may be in the title game. By winning the V'Tech game, LSU gets into the title game. By losing to LSU, V'Tech gets... the same type of BCS bid that Oklahoma gets. Second, LSU and V'Tech get paid -- big time -- for that matchup. A game with national title implications, of BCS quality, is a commodity in September! Number 9 at Number 2. It's worth a lot to ESPN and the networks, so it's worth a lot to the schools, too.
A tournament mitigates both of these. First, two losses seems to be the magic to make a tournament, and the risk of receiving a fatal loss at the hands of a top-10 in September. Illinois' week one loss at home to Missouri is the perfect example -- the winner of that game received a nice but meaningless win, while the loser is sure to miss out on our hypothetical tournament. Doesn't really make much sense to schedule that game, does it?
And really, the risk of a loss outweighs the money earned -- especially given that the money earned from a four-game tournament run, including hosting a first and maybe second round "title tournament" game. Any wonderful gains made by "classic tournament matchups" will be offset by a lack of similar regular season games, as a rational AD will schedule much fewer, if any, of these ratings monsters.
1) Conference Championships Will Matter Even Less; Unless The Voters Are Biased. For some fans, this will fall on deaf ears. For others -- those who already dislike the BCS as it filets the tradition from a once-noble game -- this is truly number one.
The sad truth is that there's something majestic about the Big 10 and Pac-10 champs facing off in the Rose Bowl, and that majesty is now gone. The BCS also slayed the notion that winning a conference is meaningful when it allowed Nebraska into the title game over Colorado in 2001. This year, the voters jury-rigged the outcome to get a conference champ in, as they did in 2006. Would such noble trickery be welcome in a tournament setting? Probably not, because it wouldn't make much difference if you won your conference -- unless, of course, the voters think your conference is a joke.
No, I'm not talking about the WAC -- I'm talking about the 2006 Big East or the 2007 Big 10. Last year, two-loss West Virginia was #13 in the BCS standings, behind three-los Arkansas (#12) and a horrifically overrated Notre Dame (#11). With the top five at-large bids going to two SEC teams (LSU at #4 and Auburn at #9), two Big 10 teams (Michigan at #3 and Wisconsin at #7), and Notre Dame, the second-best team in the Big East was left out -- in fact, four SEC teams were ahead of them. This year? Big 10 runner up Illinois fails to crack the tournament, because -- even though they beat the #1 team in the nation -- three-loss team Florida gets in over them. Not as egregious, of course, but the point otherwise holds. If the voters like your conference, congrats, you're in -- just make sure you are one of the top three teams. If not, you better win that title.
Fans are loathe to institute any system where bias -- even well-intentioned forms -- can stir the outcome of the championship. That's part of the reason why we don't like the BCS. But a tournament? A false messiah, and nothing more.
