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Bama fatique killing college football???
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Agreed, but none of our guys showed up on national TV on draft night talking about the money he took, or wearing a bong gas mask. Cheating's fine, getting caught isn't.
Yeah sorry, forgot Oregon has been to the National title games many times over and has a filled trophy case.
I forgot to ask, did Oregon win that game?
Does the country have fatigue with Harvard turning out the best lawyers? I mean sure, it is annoying but when you want to see a good football game, you’d rather turn on an Alabama vs Ohio State game than watching Oregon play Iowa State. I mean Johnny Cochran was nice for the OJ trial, but prior and after the OJ trial no one cared about him compared to Shapiro who was the more “Alabama” lawyer.
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Well ranking at game time is also a historically accurate metric, but it means very little after all or even most of the games have been played. If you want to brag about who you beat and want to tell me you beat the #3 team when in real life, they finished 7-6 and not in anybody's ranking then I'm going to rightfully say you are dumb.
Alabama beat 5 ranked teams this year...#2,4,5,7 and 13 not 6 ranked #3, #3, #4, #7, #13 and #22. It's hard to imagine saying we beat #3 twice when it was two different teams and not sound stupid...hence the reason for EOY rankings, because nobody wants to be a dummy.
Oregon can claim 1, #21 USC...although Lord only knows why they are ranked. Probably because they were smart and opted out of playing in a bowl game and didn't get exposed like all the other Pac-12 teams.
Now in terms of OOC wins, Alabama has 2 over ranked opponents and Oregon has 0. Alabama is 2-0, Oregon is 0-1, as is tradition.
If you want to feel better about Oregon...Washington has now gone more than 10 years without beating a ranked OOC opponent and more than 20 years since they beat one in the regular season...and they are supposed to be one of your better teams.
CFL they could because it isn’t a grown man league like the NFL, XFL or AAF was because of the field. But I am pretty sure the CFL has either a written or unspoken rule about not taking kids who are eligible for the NCAA.
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I truly don't think you guys understand the difference between a high school senior and grown ass man who has been through 3 or 4 years of an S&C and nutrition plan at a college. And, let's not forget the post that brought this up said there were 20-30 kids per year that could do this.
Example, Ben Cleveland who was a huge OL country boy:
High school / College Junior
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I'll try to explain it one more time
Here are the numbers for the last 3 years:
| Playoff and NY6 Bowl Viewers | |||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | AVG | ||
| Final | 18.65 | 25.59 | 25.28 | 23.17 | |
| Semi | 18.89 | 21.15 | 19.07 | 19.70 | |
| Semi | 19.15 | 17.21 | 16.81 | 17.72 | |
| NY6 | 8.73 | 16.3 | 16.78 | 13.94 | |
| NY6 | 6.68 | 10.22 | 13.29 | 10.06 | |
| NY6 | 5.77 | 6.22 | 8.47 | 6.82 | |
| NY6 | 5.77 | 6.07 | 8.37 | 6.74 | |
| Best Non | 4.78 | 14 | 7.7 | 8.83 | |
| Aub-NW | ALA-UM | UK-PSU |
Excuse the formatting I copy and pasted out of Excel.
As you can see 2020 is significantly down from previous years. Covid has had a disastrous impact on tv ratings. But that doesn't mean we can't see trends.
Looking at the numbers you can see that the Finals average 23 million viewers and the Semi games pull on average about 18.5 million viewers and that there are usually two NY6 games that pull good numbers as well and two that perform significantly worse, often hardly better than some of the other better bowls and sometimes significantly worse....care to guess which set contains the G5 team every year....
You are arguing that adding 4 more quarter final games to the mix is going to result in significantly more viewers. I'm arguing that it is just going to cannibalize existing games and here is why. There are a finite number of key teams that everyone wants to see play in a given year. There is a reason that two NY6 games historically do better than others...because the others have teams people don't want to watch. Occasionally there are games in the lower tiers that offer teams that people want to watch like last year;s Alabama vs Michigan game and occasionally there are NY6 games that leave people flat, like last year's Florida UVA game. In general, it is extremely rare for a non-NY6 bowl to draw more than 6 million.
So, if you add the quarter finals, the most likely scenario is 4 quarterfinal game take the place of 4 NY6 bowls and 2 Semi-Finals take the place of the other 2 and they just rotate. Anything else like your home game scenario is not going to fly because there is no way anybody is leaving the NY6 bowls out in the dark and the current contract is geared towards those bowls, changing that just adds a bunch of shit that nobody is asking for.
So. I think we can agree that since the finals draws on average 5 million more viewers than the semis, there also must be some kind of drop off from the semis to the quarters. You don't get to dilute the product and pretend like it is just as good as the old product. Let;s pretend it is a slight drop off, say 3 million viewers. Seems more than fair.
So I have this pre-expansion
Final 23
Semi 18.5
Semi 18.5
NY6 13.9
Ny6 10.1
NY6 6.8
NY6 6.7
Total 97,.5
Expanded Playoffs
Final 23
Semi 18.5
Semi 18.5
NY6 QTR 15
NY6 QTR 15
NY6 QTR 15
NY6 QTR 15
Total 135
The problem is down ballot. There is never going to be another Alabama-Michigan Citrus Bowl that pulls 14.4 million viewers with expansion, hell in a few years, there may not even be a Citrus Bowl because nobody will give a shit about two also-rans that couldn't make an expanded playoff. We may already be starting to see that with only 4 playoff teams.
The problem is you can't just add 4 quarter final games and pretend the other bowls are just going to go on like they used to before. This means that ESPN best case scenario gets 38 million more viewers. That assumes only a 3 million drop from the Semis and that the remaining bowls remain the same ratings wise. I personally don't see 15 million tuning in for Alabama vs Cincinnati or Clemson-Florida. There are going to be shitty match-ups people don't like just like there is in the NY6 now. My guess is the Quarters become the ratings equivalent to a good NY6 game in the current format averaging about 12 million.
I would say it costs the next 10 bowls down stream at least a million viewers, and if the quarters only pull 12 million. now you are down to 16 million viewers.
16 million more viewers is worth how much? Now factor in that your 2020 NY6/Playoff viewership was down 20 million from 2019, which was down 6 million from 2018. How much more am I willing to pay now when I don't know if that is going to continue.
Then add in that the number of people cutting the cable cord is expanding daily and you are losing subscribers at the rate of 6% per year for the last several years...
Like I said, ESPN popped on the SEC deal because they were taking it away from someone else and the SEC is experiencing an uptick in viewership, unlike many conferences. This is a scenario where they are competing against themselves for TV rights they already have. They are paying a billion dollars over 10 years for the SEC rights. CBS averages 6.68 million viewers for it;s 15 SEC games, which had increased every year for the last 6. That is 100.2 million viewers per year. Hmmm, ESPN paid 100 million per year for 100 million viewers, I think we may have hit the number that a viewer is worth to ESPN? Seems like a slightly different number than that Buzzfan blogger was using.
There may well be an expanded playoffs in the very near future, but if it happens it won't be because ESPN offered a billion dollars to the conferences for the rights...or $500 million or even $200 million seems unlikely. Although you might even seen a large number if they scrap the current deal, because the current deal was rear-ended loaded, so ESPN owes more on the last years of the contract through 2026, so they could afford to make it look like they are paying more for PR purposes, but would actually be paying less.
I am happy to entertain arguments, but if you throw a number out there that says you are just going to add 4 games and they are going to all get the same ratings as the semis and all the other bowls are just going to stay the same so you are going to just add 65 million viewers to the pot and a viewer is worth $7 to ESPN like that Buzzfan dummy then don't expect me to not say you are riding the short bus.
IF you think the Quarters are going to draw the same numbers as the Semis please explain why? If you think that adding the Quarters is going to have no impact on the other bowls, please explain why?
I used Sports Watch Media for the ratings numbers because that's what they do. Here are the links:
2020 viewers
2019 Viewers
2018 viewers
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It's not Bama fatigue as much as it's "4 of the same 8 teams are going to make the playoff every year" fatigue
Its why a 4 team playoff was the worst of every possible option
At least with 2 teams the elites still had to win every game most years
Basically now the bluebloods not only get the best recruits AND the benefit of preseason love but now they also get a free loss
Either go back to 2 or go to 8 or 16 ( preferably 16 )
Its why a 4 team playoff was the worst of every possible option
At least with 2 teams the elites still had to win every game most years
Basically now the bluebloods not only get the best recruits AND the benefit of preseason love but now they also get a free loss
Either go back to 2 or go to 8 or 16 ( preferably 16 )
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The CFL Draft is only Canadian players at Canadian Universities or Canadians playing at NCAA schools. If they are on multiple NFL draft boards they likely go undrafted because anybody that is going to get picked up by an NFL team is not going to sign with a CFL team. So guys that were eligible like Chase Claypool last year or Chuba Hubbard this year are not getting drafted. Probably half that are drafted aren't signed, but each team has to have 17 Canadian players on their roster, which is usually what they have. The rest are Americans signed as free agents. The league is full of late round NFL draft picks that couldn't make an NFL roster or couldn't stay on one. I can assure you it is grown man football and a high school kid wouldn't fare any better than he would in the XFL and way worse than the AAF.
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How is 8 or 16 going to change that? If Iowa can't beat Ohio State in early December what makes them any more likely to do it in January versus Ohio State or any other elite team. Just seems like you are making it more likely for a blue blood to win it, not less. If it were 8 this year and I had to choose which one of the 4-8 teams had the best shot at taking the title, I would have put way more money on two loss Oklahoma than unbeaten Cincinnati.
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I appreciate the substantive response, even though I disagree. I am a data guy, as you saw in my post, and it appears you are, too. But we are both making a lot of assumptions. Neither of us really knows what will happen. I believe that there would be enough interest in the quarters that the numbers would be significantly higher than non-CFP NY6 games, and you don't. I am also not worried about the downstream bowls ... they are being made irrelevant by the current CFP, so I don't think that will be something that will come into the calculous.
Look at the quarter-finals in my example ... those are all teams that would draw eyeballs because (1) the fans of those teams and their conferences would watch more, and (2) a game that actually has meaning when the winner moves on is more interesting than just some bowl game that even the teams and their fans don't care about. Let's not forget that for the past many years, even fans of teams in those games really didn't care. Now they will and that is why the quarters will draw more like the semis.
As for the other bowl games, their value to ESPN is simply in their volume. They have so many, that they just need to make a little off each one and they are worth having. In an 8 team CFP the teams in those bowl games are not diluted as the ones likely to be in the NY6, as CFP games would be close to the same as those in the current setup. In the 12 team CFP, which is what I think will happen, the lower bowls would be hurt more as 4 teams that would be in the Outback, Citrus type bowls would not be available.
A couple other counterpoints:
- You seem to argue that adding 4 more teams won't increase eyeballs, or will be balanced out by lesser eyes in other bowls. That's kind of an odd zero sum game to me. You are acting like there is a set number of eyes, and that they can't expand. I contend that an expanded CFP will expand the interest in the playoff and therefore increase the number of eyes. See my final point below on this.
- You say there is a finite number of teams people want to see each year. I disagree. The fans of many teams, and fans in their conference would love to see more teams. Again, that's kind of an odd statement ... I get that we in SEC country are serious about our football - it does mean more - but there would a lot of interest in seeing other teams play.
- I thought I was pretty clear that any 8 team CFP would involve the NY6 bowls. And my home game schedule does not leave the NY6 out. My home game scenario is for a 12 team CFP and it has play-in round games at home fields, and then quarters in NY6 bowls. Every scenario I mentioned has the NY6 being as relevant as they possibly could. The only bowls that might be hurt by this are the 3 or 4 more minor games played on the 31st or the 1st (Citrus, Outback, etc.).
- You state: "Now factor in that your 2020 NY6/Playoff viewership was down 20 million from 2019, which was down 6 million from 2018. How much more am I willing to pay now when I don't know if that is going to continue." That's after you accused me of rigging numbers by using the Covide year. C'mon, we can't look at anything in 2020 to determine what will happen in the future.
- You state: "I am happy to entertain arguments, but if you throw a number out there that says you are just going to add 4 games and they are going to all get the same ratings as the semis and all the other bowls are just going to stay the same so you are going to just add 65 million viewers to the pot and a viewer is worth $7 to ESPN like that Buzzfan dummy then don't expect me to not say you are riding the short bus." You realize that your zero sum game concept seem just as absurd to me? The idea that an expanded CFP will not increase viewership overall just doesn't make sense to me.
Final point ... you are the only one arguing this strictly from a "what ESPN will pay" perspective. There are a number of other reasons why they need to do this, all of which will generate more revenue for everyone - it's not just about ESPN, the blinders you have on, IMO: (1) there is a groundswell of discontent with the idea that it's the same few teams over and over. Hell, that's what the OP was about. It's all over media, you are heating ADs, coaches, and conference chairs talking about it. (2) the current system is about as dumb as you could want (other than the 2 team BCS, and the pre-BCS MCN through polls) where you have 4 slots and 5 conferences and 1 well know independent. The idea that year in and year out certain conferences don't even have a shot to get in is just stupid. It doesn't matter that it means more in the SEC, or that the PAC are a bunch of commie pussies (I kid, I kid, kinda). 8 or 12 is just a better number, and expanding playoffs will keep a much larger number of teams in contention far longer into the season, and the CCGs will be more important. All that will increase total eyeballs and revenue. (3) 8 or 12 means you are going to have far better OOC games. This is already happening in a great way. The OOC schedules starting in the next couple of years are fantastic. This means the inventory of fantastic OOC games is going to increase many times over, which will also increase the popularity of the game and grow the total eyeballs. So, it's more than just what ESPN will pay, and what the smaller less significant bowls want, even though I acknowledge they are heavy players in all this.
Appreciate the substantive discussion ... we don't get that very often here any more.
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He was a top 100 player too. That guy on the left would get his ass kicked in the AAF. The guy on the right is about to be a millionaire. To be fair though, OL is probably one of the spots that is least likely to be able to make the jump directly from high school.
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But, we those teams would have a chance, and they don't now. That means more fans interested, more conferences involved, players may spread out a little more. Even with 8 or 12, LSU would have won last year, and Bama would have won this year. The cream rises to the top. But, what's wrong with more football? More football is better than less football.
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I agree on the OL, but even CBs and S, they get cut in college. You are correct, for sure, on the ass getting kicked.
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It changes it because it engages the fans. You remember them right? The people who watch the games and pay the bills ? A 4 team playoff in a sport with 128 teams is stupid. A 4 team playoff in a sport with 128 teams where you dobt even have to win your conference to get in the playoff is even dumber .
The regular season is already meaningless as teams can make the playoff without even winning their division so going to 16 doesn't impact the regular season other than to keep wayyyyy more fans engaged
This. I'll take it if it is only four more games of win or go home instead of increasing the number of I'm opting out bowl games.
Disclaimer: Unlike ESPN, I'm a don't give a damn about the bowls. (And that's coming from a guy that is a supporter of the 2nd oldest bowl game.) If their media deals tank, the city/sponsor can't/won't fund it all, no not enough tickets purchased to fund it, tough shit. Let 'em eat rocks.
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Dana Dimel