What is the solution to this problem that exists in college football today? A playoff system is needed, but not just any playoff system. The playoff system needs to do three things: it needs to give every team a chance to win, it needs to keep the college football regular season as the best in sports, and, most importantly, it needs to provide the BCS committees with as much or more revenue than the current system does. An increase in revenue through the new system in necessary in order that the system can be supported and implemented by those in charge of the BCS.
A twelve team playoff system is the fairest way to establish a playoff system. The 6 major conference winners would receive automatic bids, and there would be 6 other at-large bids, meaning bids that can be won by any team. Four byes would be granted in the first round, given to the top four teams from the six major conference winners. The role of the auto bids and the requisite for byes is to retain the importance of each regular season game, which makes the college football regular season the most exciting in sports. However, if there were only an 8 team playoff, there would be no byes and therefore no added reward for winning the conference, thus compromising the importance of the regular season and conference championships. If the team knows that it gains a huge advantage by winning its conference, that team would take each game as if it is their last in order to win the conference, and thereby would keep the regular season exciting.
Through this system each team has a chance to be included in the twelve team playoff, because of the six at large bids. These bids ensure that the undefeated teams from non-major conferences, such as Boise State and Utah, can have a chance to advance through the playoffs to the National Championship. These six bids also ensure that teams such as Alabama and Texas, who each had only one loss last year but lost their conferences, still have a chance to win the Championship. The six automatic bids and four byes, as mentioned, maintain the importance of each regular season game. These bids also ensure that teams last year such as Penn State and USC have opportunities for the National Championship. This is important because these teams were the best in their respective conferences, and thereby it is not fair to restrict them from playing for a championship. An 8 team playoff, however, would not allow these six automatic bids, because if it did it would only have 2 at large bids. The other option for the 8 team playoff would be to have no automatic bids and take only the top 8 teams. Neither of these options are very fair compared to the 12 team system, which provides adequate automatic bids and adequate at large bids.
What will happen to the BCS bowls now? Currently there are five. The BCS Championship decides the National Champion, and the others are the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. The Semifinals and Championship of the new playoff system, played at neutral sites, would be the current BCS Bowls. The BCS Championship Game would always be the Finals, and the semifinal games would switch each year between the other BCS bowls. For example, if this year the semifinal games were the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, next year’s semifinals would be the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl. This setup also ensures that bowls valued highly by the BCS do not fall from grace.
In addition, the two bowls not included in the playoffs would be the two most prominent bowls outside the playoffs. The marquee matchups past the top twelve teams would meet in these bowls. Then, as mentioned, the two BCS bowls would switch places for the next year. The first two rounds of the playoff would be played at the higher seeded team’s stadium. This would ensure that each team would have at most one home game in the playoffs before the games were played at neutral sites in the semifinals. The BCS would control ticketing for each and every game of the playoffs.
The final and most important issue is how this system will provide the BCS with more revenue than the current system does. Through this new system, there are eleven BCS games played, as opposed to the five BCS games that are currently played. The BCS would have full control of ticketing for all these games, thereby increasing their revenue for specifically BCS games. However, that still leaves the question of the rest of the bowl games, approximately the other 27. Keep in mind that in order to be bowl eligible, a team must be 6-6 or better. There are some teams each year that are 6-6 and are not invited to a bowl game. With twelve BCS playoff teams under the new system, as opposed to the ten BCS bowl teams under the current system, two teams who otherwise would not be playing in the postseason now have opportunities to play. That means more fans will be paying money to the BCS to watch these teams play. Therefore, the new system will simply provide more postseason football games, and more games played by the premier teams, which will undoubtedly increase revenue for the BCS.