Friday, February 25, 2022

What All The Pundits Are Getting Wrong About CFB Playoff Expansion

In the subculture that is major college football, big news broke earlier this month that the championship playoff at the sport's highest level, FBS, would not be expanding from the current 4-team format for the duration of the current contract.

from CBS Sports:

Many of us who follow the sport found this disappointing. In fact almost everyone weighing in on it including the people who decided the matter by voting against expansion expressed disappointment. So what's going on here?

Most pundits write it off as simply a group of people too petty and short-sighted to get past themselves and grasp the bigger picture. To be sure, that might actually be true. However, I think there may be something else at play. 

College football is in incredible flux. From the rise/revolt of the student athlete finally demanding and getting a fairer seat at the table to competitive pressures to realign into better and better deals, there is much uncertain about its future. 

I think it is fairly obvious that the current arrangement in college football is not sustainable. There are currently 130 teams in the division with four more planning to make the upgrade from the lower-division FCS. This is a league that ranges from Alabama to Kansas (winningest to losingest over the past 10 seasons). That is a big range.* The bottom of the league would typically be an extreme underdog to any opponent from the top of the league--perhaps on average a matchup between a top 20 team and a bottom 20 team would imply a +90% likelihood the favorite would prevail.

This is not a league with any sense of balance. Frankly, somebody has gotta go. Most of the members of the major conferences, the so-called Power Five, know this. As a group their teams are much better than the rest of the league, the so-called Group of Five. While some of the weakest teams are found in the Power Five (e.g., Kansas and Vanderbilt) and some of the strongest teams are found outside the Power Five (e.g., Central Florida, Boise State, and independent Notre Dame), these are exceptions. 

It is my contention that the major stumbling block to expansion of the CFP before 2026 is what kind of deal the Group of Five would get in the arrangement. If those conferences were granted slots in the playoff, they would hold a lot of bargaining power going forward. The teams within those conferences, especially the very good teams, would have much less incentive to move into a power conference. If nothing else, the buyout of those rights would grow astronomically. 

It has been at least rumored that the Power Five have offered to buy out the Group of Five from the CFP. This would line up with my hypothesis nicely. The elite teams and conferences see the writing on the wall. They know, I believe, that the highest division of college football should have perhaps 64 or so teams in it. 

They also know, I believe, that even if a field of ~130 teams continues, it very well might be one with a de facto two divisions (upper and lower). The lower teams would be there as sort of a relegation à la soccer. By no means in this arrangement should a lower-division team have anything but the slimmest of chances at a playoff berth. 

Any concession made today to a lower-tier team/conference, is very risky. As talent accumulates into the better teams/conferences, those entities have the luxury of wanting a bigger share of the spoils. Negotiations while the future of the league is still sorting itself out means deals can't come together--the lower-level teams/conferences want more than they can offer and the upper-level teams/conferences need more than they can get. 

I didn't see this clearly at first and expected an expansion to happen before the current contract's expiration in 2025. Now I understand it better if for no other reason than having to look hard to understand why a deal fell through. 







*If you don't agree that Kansas isn't a serious team (Texas Longhorns probably don't), then consider the other doormats over the past decade: UMass, New Mexico State, Connecticut. 

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