Hypothetical playoff...attendance version

[metalliccucumber]

Attendance in college football was down this year. Assume that in a few years, the 4 team playoff expands to 8. The quarter final games would likely be in home field stadiums based on seed. I assume fans would likely go given campus proximity. The semifinals would be in traditional bowl game sites presumable. Would you travel to a semi final game knowing that you wanted to save your trip for the finals? Also, if you thought you were a shoe in for a qtr final home game, would you feel the earlier conf championship game was not worthy of a trip? I am struggling to see how all these games hold attendance. TV money would be fine...but having fans in seats, I'm not sure. Of the possible 4 games...SEC champ in ATL, a qtr final, a semi final, and a national final, which one would you likely try to attend?

Even with a 4 team race it will be interesting to see if the conf championship games get cannabalized.

[gatormoe1]

I hope the playoffs stay at 4 teams forever.

8 teams do not deserve to play. Play your schedule and win most/all the games, win your championship, get in the top 4 and you deserve to play. At most I can see a 5th team and the #1 team gets a bye then plays the winner of the 4/5th ranked team.

[Juggernautz]

I prefer the format of the lesser divisions.

[atlantagator86]

Originally Posted by metalliccucumber

Attendance in college football was down this year. Assume that in a few years, the 4 team playoff expands to 8. The quarter final games would likely be in home field stadiums based on seed. I assume fans would likely go given campus proximity. The semifinals would be in traditional bowl game sites presumable. Would you travel to a semi final game knowing that you wanted to save your trip for the finals? Also, if you thought you were a shoe in for a qtr final home game, would you feel the earlier conf championship game was not worthy of a trip? I am struggling to see how all these games hold attendance. TV money would be fine...but having fans in seats, I'm not sure. Of the possible 4 games...SEC champ in ATL, a qtr final, a semi final, and a national final, which one would you likely try to attend?

Even with a 4 team race it will be interesting to see if the conf championship games get cannabalized.

First of all, while they probably will at some time want to go to 8 teams, I really hope they stick with the 4 team playoff for a long time. I don't like the idea of 2 and 3 loss teams having a chance. It diminished the importance of the regular season. Nobody gives a damn about college basketball until March Madness.

Second, the money in the college football playoffs is not going to be made on ticket sales. It's going to be made on TV. Even for the current bowl games, it's somewhat uncommon for a school to actually travel over 10,000 fans if it's not within a day trip. The majority of the bowl game tickets are sold in the host city. So cannibalization of CGs or traveling to multiple games is a relatively minor factor. It is a factor, but not as big as you might think.

[demosthenes]

Originally Posted by atlantagator86

First of all, while they probably will at some time want to go to 8 teams, I really hope they stick with the 4 team playoff for a long time. I don't like the idea of 2 and 3 loss teams having a chance. It diminished the importance of the regular season. Nobody gives a damn about college basketball until March Madness.

Second, the money in the college football playoffs is not going to be made on ticket sales. It's going to be made on TV. Even for the current bowl games, it's somewhat uncommon for a school to actually travel over 10,000 fans if it's not within a day trip. The majority of the bowl game tickets are sold in the host city. So cannibalization of CGs or traveling to multiple games is a relatively minor factor. It is a factor, but not as big as you might think.

Disagree on an 8 team playoff diminishing the regular season. Home games in college football are such a benefit that teams will fight tooth and nail to have a home game. Losing even one game can put you on the road against a higher rated team. Not an easy way to make the next round. And just imagine if you had to play at Wisconsin, Michigan, or Penn State in late December...

[your_perfect_enemy]

Originally Posted by gatormoe1

I hope the playoffs stay at 4 teams forever.

8 teams do not deserve to play. Play your schedule and win most/all the games, win your championship, get in the top 4 and you deserve to play. At most I can see a 5th team and the #1 team gets a bye then plays the winner of the 4/5th ranked team.

I think you're probably right about it needing to stay at 4, but IMO for that to really work they need to standardize the conference sizes and schedules. I know there will always be talent disparity between the conferences but if everyone were playing in a 16 team league with 9 confernce games and a championship game at the end (or whatever they settled on) at least it would be a much better apples to apples comparison.

[KronoGator]

Conference title games will be an endangered specie in a playoff world, especially when being a conference champion will not get you automatically into the playoffs, they will disappear as the playoffs inevitably expand.

[brickeyp]

One thing that will hurt playoff attendance is buying a plane ticket. If you need to fly to the game, a plane ticket is going to be really expensive when you are buying it only 7 days in advance.

[AzCatFan]

To say nobody cares about college basketball until March just isn't true. Just look at the crowds in Lexington, Bloomington, Tucson, Lawrence, and other basketball schools. Sold out every home game. College basketball is also more tv friendly than NHL Hockey, which is why ESPN broadcasts tons of basketball games, and zero hockey now-a-days. And one reason for this is, for bubble teams, the fight to get in on the right side of the bubble is intriguing. And for top teams, the fight to get the highest seed possible is big, as history shows, the higher the seed, the greater the chance you have to get to the Final Four.

And 8-team playoff with top teams hosting the quarter-finals would not diminish the regular season at all. Top teams would fight tooth and nail to secure a home game. And teams 5-8 would fight tooth and nail to get a ticket to the dance. Imagine a Florida-FSU game, late in the year, where the Gators are ranked #2, and FSU #7. Don't tell me that game would be meaningless, especially if UF won, it would potentially knock FSU out. And if FSU won, it could potentially mean UF would play the first game of the playoffs on the road.

That's not to say 8 teams, or any amount of teams are the perfect scenario. There is no such thing with 120 teams and a 12-game regular season schedule. Just like March Madness isn't perfect, and there are teams every year crying about not being selected. Still, in football, 8 is better than 2, and better than 4, in my opinion. And 3 weeks of playoffs seems to be rather standard in NCAA sports, and again, for football, that means 8 teams.

[atlantagator86]

Originally Posted by AzCatFan

To say nobody cares about college basketball until March just isn't true. Just look at the crowds in Lexington, Bloomington, Tucson, Lawrence, and other basketball schools. Sold out every home game. College basketball is also more tv friendly than NHL Hockey, which is why ESPN broadcasts tons of basketball games, and zero hockey now-a-days. And one reason for this is, for bubble teams, the fight to get in on the right side of the bubble is intriguing. And for top teams, the fight to get the highest seed possible is big, as history shows, the higher the seed, the greater the chance you have to get to the Final Four.

And 8-team playoff with top teams hosting the quarter-finals would not diminish the regular season at all. Top teams would fight tooth and nail to secure a home game. And teams 5-8 would fight tooth and nail to get a ticket to the dance. Imagine a Florida-FSU game, late in the year, where the Gators are ranked #2, and FSU #7. Don't tell me that game would be meaningless, especially if UF won, it would potentially knock FSU out. And if FSU won, it could potentially mean UF would play the first game of the playoffs on the road.

AzCatFan:

I was referring more to TV audience than game attendance and particularly the difference between regular season and bowl/tournament ratings because that's where the revenue is generated. And my point is true!

Last season the average NCAA Tourney game TV rating was 6.6 versus an average regular season rating on ESPN (0.9) and CBS (1.3). The National championship game drew a 12.3 rating. The highest rating for a regular season game last season was Duke/UNC at 2.7 and only 7 games had a rating of over 2.0.

This year, the average rating for the 5 BCS Bowl games was 8.84. The BCS CG drew a 15.7. The AVERAGE SEC game on CBS rating this year was close to a 4.0 and the SECCG average rating over the past 3 years is 7.7. The 2 highest rated regular season games in college football this year were the SECCG (Bama/UGA) and USC/Notre Dame which drew a 10.0.

Compare the title games where a 12.3 NCAA basketball rating is pretty comparable to the 15.7 of the BCS game. And the NCAA Tourney average of 6.6 versus the BCS game average of 8.83. A lot of people watched postseason in both! Roughly 30% more people on average watched football than basketball but generally the numbers are pretty consistent.

But more telling is the comparison of the difference between regular season versus postseason. In football, AT LEAST the 2 regular season games (Bama/UGA and USC/Notre Dame) rated HIGHER than the average BCS game and the CBS average of the SEC games was only slightly less than 50% of the BCS average. Compare that to the highest rated NCAA regular season game (UNC/Duke) only being about 41% of the AVERAGE tourney game and the average regular season game TV rating only being about 15% of the Tourney game average.

To me that paints a pretty clear picture. The TV audience just doesn't care much about college basketball until the NCAA Tournament, where in college football the regular season is almost as important as the postseason.

And why is that? I believe it's largely because the regular season is just about playing well enough to make the NCAA Tournament. There just isn't that life or death fear like there is in college football. Make the Tournament and you have the same chance as everyone else.

As to your other point, imagine on the other hand that UF plays FSU and one or both teams have pretty much secured their spots. And then one or both teams decide to rest their starters. That would suck!

[AzCatFan]

Originally Posted by atlantagator86

AzCatFan:

I was referring more to TV audience than game attendance and particularly the difference between regular season and bowl/tournament ratings because that's where the revenue is generated. And my point is true!

Last season the average NCAA Tourney game TV rating was 6.6 versus an average regular season rating on ESPN (0.9) and CBS (1.3). The National championship game drew a 12.3 rating. The highest rating for a regular season game last season was Duke/UNC at 2.7 and only 7 games had a rating of over 2.0.

This year, the average rating for the 5 BCS Bowl games was 8.84. The BCS CG drew a 15.7. The AVERAGE SEC game on CBS rating this year was close to a 4.0 and the SECCG average rating over the past 3 years is 7.7. The 2 highest rated regular season games in college football this year were the SECCG (Bama/UGA) and USC/Notre Dame which drew a 10.0.

Compare the title games where a 12.3 NCAA basketball rating is pretty comparable to the 15.7 of the BCS game. And the NCAA Tourney average of 6.6 versus the BCS game average of 8.83. A lot of people watched postseason in both! Roughly 30% more people on average watched football than basketball but generally the numbers are pretty consistent.

But more telling is the comparison of the difference between regular season versus postseason. In football, AT LEAST the 2 regular season games (Bama/UGA and USC/Notre Dame) rated HIGHER than the average BCS game and the CBS average of the SEC games was only slightly less than 50% of the BCS average. Compare that to the highest rated NCAA regular season game (UNC/Duke) only being about 41% of the AVERAGE tourney game and the average regular season game TV rating only being about 15% of the Tourney game average.

To me that paints a pretty clear picture. The TV audience just doesn't care much about college basketball until the NCAA Tournament, where in college football the regular season is almost as important as the postseason.

And why is that? I believe it's largely because the regular season is just about playing well enough to make the NCAA Tournament. There just isn't that life or death fear like there is in college football. Make the Tournament and you have the same chance as everyone else.

As to your other point, imagine on the other hand that UF plays FSU and one or both teams have pretty much secured their spots. And then one or both teams decide to rest their starters. That would suck!

Of course there is a major difference between college basketball and college football when it comes to tv ratings. And that's football is on 2X a week at most (Thursday night and Saturday), whereas basketball is on 7X a week. Football games also take 3+ hours, and a team only plays, at most, once a week. Basketball games are 2+ hours and during early season and late season tournaments, teams can play 3 games in 3 days, or even 4 games in 4 days!

As to my other point, I cannot picture a scenario where the top seeds host games that even if two teams have secured spots, the game is meaningless. One versus two, and both teams have secured playoff spots, the game is still meaningful. The winner would be the 1 seed in the playoffs, and host the 8 seed. The loser could fall as far as 4, and host the 5 seed, or even fall as far as 5, and travel to the 4 seed. Would anyone really rest their starters in this scenario? Ever?

That's the difference between a college football playoffs and the NFL. No locked in positioning like what could happen in the NFL. Lose one game late, and you could lose a home game. Or lose one game late, and you can be knocked out of the playoffs altogether. There would no scenarios like you get in the NFL with the team that already won its division and has best record and the #1 seed locked down. In college, that's not determined until the last regular season game is over.

[atlantagator86]

Originally Posted by AzCatFan

Of course there is a major difference between college basketball and college football when it comes to tv ratings. And that's football is on 2X a week at most (Thursday night and Saturday), whereas basketball is on 7X a week. Football games also take 3+ hours, and a team only plays, at most, once a week. Basketball games are 2+ hours and during early season and late season tournaments, teams can play 3 games in 3 days, or even 4 games in 4 days!

I'm not following your logic here at all. What difference does it make how many times a week they play? I'm not understanding.

My point is that the average NCAA Tournament game had about 2.5X the number of viewers of the very highest rated regular season basketball game, where there were multiple regular season college football games that had ratings higher than the average BCS game. People just don't care much about college basketball until the tournament.

Originally Posted by AzCatFan

As to my other point, I cannot picture a scenario where the top seeds host games that even if two teams have secured spots, the game is meaningless. One versus two, and both teams have secured playoff spots, the game is still meaningful. The winner would be the 1 seed in the playoffs, and host the 8 seed. The loser could fall as far as 4, and host the 5 seed, or even fall as far as 5, and travel to the 4 seed. Would anyone really rest their starters in this scenario? Ever?

That's the difference between a college football playoffs and the NFL. No locked in positioning like what could happen in the NFL. Lose one game late, and you could lose a home game. Or lose one game late, and you can be knocked out of the playoffs altogether. There would no scenarios like you get in the NFL with the team that already won its division and has best record and the #1 seed locked down. In college, that's not determined until the last regular season game is over.

First of all, you assume that playoff would be played in campus stadiums, which is possible, but not likely in my opinion.

The 4 team playoff will all be neutral site games and IF they ever go to 8 teams, nobody knows whether they'd put the first round on campus or not. With the revenue involved, and the amount of money cities pay to host game, my guess is that all playoff games will be held at neutral sites, so the value of home field is likely going to be greatly diminished. The big push is likely to be just to secure a spot by winning your conference for automatic bid.

I also think it's very possible that if they ever go beyond the 4 team playoff, they may eliminate the CCGs (for scheduling purposes) in which case conference champs (assuming they get automatic bids) could go back to being determined by conference records, basically the way the SEC divisions are decided now. So conference winners and automatic bids may be determined before rivalry week. So that part of it could be a lot more like the NFL then you think. Even though UF was in the NCG hunt right up the Notre Dame/USC game, the SEC East was decided all the way back on November 10th when UGA beat Auburn.

[Swampmaster]

Assume that round 1 is in Glendale and the title game is in New Orleans the next week--that will be some expensive travel for fans to make both games (airfare, hotels, meals, expensive tickets...) --- attendance will be affected.

[atlantagator86]

Originally Posted by Swampmaster

Assume that round 1 is in Glendale and the title game is in New Orleans the next week--that will be some expensive travel for fans to make both games (airfare, hotels, meals, expensive tickets...) --- attendance will be affected.

No doubt. I think the CCGs have already demonstrated that. But go back to the point I made before that the real revenue is generated these days on TV and not ticket sales.

Also the majority of tickets are not sold by the schools. Most are sold/distributed locally by the host city. I'm not sure how the numbers work for most bowls but I believe the BCS game obligate each school to buy something like 20,000 tickets, whether they sell them or not and then the host city tries to sell the roughly 30-40,000 remaining tickets. UF took a pretty big hit this year for the Sugar Bowl.

And actually, I think that cost is potentially all the more reason for the playoff games to be held in neutral sites. Imagine the costs and logistics to plan last minute travel to Boise or Stillwater, OK.

[AmbroseGator]

The amount of games televised and their frequency matter to ratings because at least part (I'd say a substantial part) of college football's viewership demand is based on the scarcity of the product.

We get one day of football per week plus the single Thursday night game. Your favorite team only plays 11-12 times. In college basketball the teams play nearly three times the number of regular season games and you can find something televised most nights of the week.

With more choices there's less demand per game because a) they don't mean as much as a percentage of the regular season, b) there are more opportunities for your team to play (and maybe be televised), and c) the fan of the sport can get his fix nearly any night he wants and doesn't need to wait for Saturday and make sure he's watching one of the televised games.

Sure, there are plenty of other important factors, but the way basketball is scheduled and televised makes a difference.

[atlantagator86]

Originally Posted by AmbroseGator

The amount of games televised and their frequency matter to ratings because at least part (I'd say a substantial part) of college football's viewership demand is based on the scarcity of the product.

We get one day of football per week plus the single Thursday night game. Your favorite team only plays 11-12 times. In college basketball the teams play nearly three times the number of regular season games and you can find something televised most nights of the week.

With more choices there's less demand per game because a) they don't mean as much as a percentage of the regular season, b) there are more opportunities for your team to play (and maybe be televised), and c) the fan of the sport can get his fix nearly any night he wants and doesn't need to wait for Saturday and make sure he's watching one of the televised games.

Sure, there are plenty of other important factors, but the way basketball is scheduled and televised makes a difference.

I MIGHT somewhat buy the sheer number of games shown most every night having some effect on the overall average regular season ratings being lower, but that doesn't explain why the single highest regular season basketball game (Duke/UNC) only had a 2.7 rating and was rated lower than the C-USA football CG it was directly up against, and at least 2 regular season football games having a rating almost 4 times higher.

Also keep in mind that many of the very high rates football games got those rating against several other games being shown at the same time.

It also doesn't explain how the tourney game ratings are so much higher than the regular season, especially since there are sometimes 4 tourney games going on at the same time.

My personal feeling is that most people, including myself, view the entire regular season as relatively unimportant, other than making sure you play well enough to get into the 64. They don't care much about the regular season, just the tournament.

[AmbroseGator]

I don't disagree, but remember that UNC will play Duke twice during the year and their one highly rated matchup corresponds to roughly 3.5% of their regular season. And they could conceivably play each other two more times in the postseason.

UF vs FSU only happens once (unless its 1994 or 1996) and represents almost 9% of the regular season with only one more game likely to be played for the year--two at the most.

Couple that with college basketball in general being televised nearly every night, and I hope you see how it could impact television ratings. Of course if argue that football is just better than basketball anyway, so there's always that reason for lower basketball ratings.

I agree that a post season tournament if any size might diminish the importance of the college football regular season. But I think it's a marginal risk and that college basketball and football are different enough as to make one to one comparison difficult.

[96Gatorcise]

Originally Posted by metalliccucumber

Attendance in college football was down this year. Assume that in a few years, the 4 team playoff expands to 8. The quarter final games would likely be in home field stadiums based on seed. I assume fans would likely go given campus proximity. The semifinals would be in traditional bowl game sites presumable. Would you travel to a semi final game knowing that you wanted to save your trip for the finals? Also, if you thought you were a shoe in for a qtr final home game, would you feel the earlier conf championship game was not worthy of a trip? I am struggling to see how all these games hold attendance. TV money would be fine...but having fans in seats, I'm not sure. Of the possible 4 games...SEC champ in ATL, a qtr final, a semi final, and a national final, which one would you likely try to attend?

Even with a 4 team race it will be interesting to see if the conf championship games get cannabalized.

I have always thought neutral site semi final games would be cost prohibitive for the fans. I would always save my money for the NC game and just take my chances my team makes it.

All semi final games should be on campus (revenues split 50/50 minus expenses for host team) and the NC game a neutral site game. The bowls can be for the teams not in the playoff.

Screw bowl tradition, the playoff system is a whole new animal....

[ArtVandelay]

As someone who travels a lot for the Gators and a lot in general, I don't think the playoffs would affect my plans. I go to 1 away Gator game per year and 1 or 2 home games per year (coming from South Florida) If they make a National Championship game, I will be there! I don't travel for the SEC Championship game and I doubt I would travel for a playoff game that wasn't the championship. This is similar to my basketball policy, except I travel to the SEC Tourney every year. Unless the earlier rounds are in FL, I won't go to them. I will go to the Final Four if we are there!

Money is a factor, but the biggest factor for me is time off. I get limited time so I have to pick and choose.

The National Championship game is a real pain in the @$$ because its during the week and you have to take off multiple days.

[vk3000gt]

Ive been saying that a 6 team playoff is what college football needs... Thats a good enough of a sample size to determine a national champion. They can still use the bcs rankings and (traditional) bowls to determine the final Championship game...

The final bcs rankings would determine the seeds and games...

The #1 and #2 get a bye and are already set in the bcs bowl games... they play the winner of #6 vs #3 and #5 vs #4.

The "first" playoff games will be at the higher ranked home stadium (#3 and #4)a week after the conference championship games.

And to eliminate more travel.. the conference championship games should be held at the higher seed's stadium...to compensate for the bowl and national championship game.