College Football Playoffs Are a Goldmine

With another college football bowl season having been sufficiently tampered with by the BCS to lose much of its luster, fans clamoring louder than ever for a playoff, and all-the-while the NCAA effectively looking the other way while the purse-strings of its post-season are given away to conference big-wigs and bowl committee fat cats, it is perhaps time to shout something in a language that the parties in power will listen to… "$$$!".

The current BCS system is quite lucrative for those involved (both personally and organizationally), and thus there has been very little momentum to change it.  But greed (or self-interest as you may prefer to call it) could perhaps move them when nothing else will.  So, that begs the question… just how much money would a college football playoff be worth?  How much money is being left on the table?  Knowing any additional revenue would have to feed more mouths, would it be enough make a difference?

To answer this, let’s take a look at the impact that March Madness, the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament has had on its respective basketball post-season, both in terms of ratings and revenue (2007-11 averages).

Average NCAA Men's Basketball TV Ratings (household ratings)

1.1    Regular season games (ave of 131 games on ESPN in 2011)

6.4    March Madness tournament (all games)

12.0  Championship game

The tournament represents a nearly a 6x bump over the regular season, with the championship about 2x that.  Here is how the NFL stacks up, with a similar ratio for the championship and playoffs, only with the regular season appearing much more significant (who says that a playoff would eliminate the value of the regular season?).

Average NFL TV Ratings (household ratings)

10.0   Regular season games

20.2   Playoffs

43.7   Super Bowl

So what does College Football look like?

Average NCAA College Football TV Ratings (household ratings)

1.7   Regular season games

4.0   All bowl games

15.7  BCS Championship Game

In comparison to college basketball and the NFL, the obvious outlier here is the post-season, where the bowls are only about 25% of the championship ratings, even though you would expect it to be closer to half.  And, considering that college football is more popular than college basketball (12% of American list it as their favorite sport and 53% consider themselves fans, compared to 4%/47% for college basketball, and 31%/63% for the NFL, per Gallup and Harris Interactive), you would expect that to potentially be even higher.

If you assume the same bump that college basketball gets, here are the projected college football playoff TV ratings:

Sport                        Reg Season      Playoffs        Championship

NCAA FB                    1.7                    4.0 (2.3x)      15.7 (9.0x)

Men’s BB                    1.1                    6.4 (6.1x)      12.0 (11.5x)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

NCAA FB (Proj)          1.7                   10.5 (6.1x)    19.9 (11.5x)

How would those increased ratings translate into dollars?  With its current TV ratings, the going ad rate is $1.14M for a 30 second commercial (2010).  With a project 27% increase in ratings, we would assume a corresponding average 27% increase in ad rates to $1.45M.

The current contract with ESPN pays out $125M/year for four games (BCS title game, Fiest, Orange, and Sugar Bowl), getting the ratings and ad revenue above.  A playoff would not only include a 27% increase in ad prices, but would also include several additional games.  Assuming the title game generates the most revenue and in proportion with its ratings, the value of a playoff is below:

Format                     Title Game   + Games      $/Game        Gross       Gain

BCS (current)           $51.3M              3             $24.6M       $125M       --

8 Team Playoff          $61.3M              6             $32.5M       $256M     $131M

16 Team Playoff        $61.3M            10             $32.5M       $386M     $261M

Moving to even an 8 team playoff would gross more than double the current take!!  And a 16 team playoff?  Triple!!!  

After netting out the current revenue from the games that would be sucked into a playoff (average of $6.25M per game), the money being left on the table is still mind-boggling:

Format                     + Games     Gross       Less ($ x gm)   Net Gain

BCS (current)             3             $125M         --                       --

8 Team Playoff            6             $256M       $18.8M              $112M

16 Team Playoff        10             $386M       $43.8M              $217M

Of course there are lots of other arguments for and against a playoff, but with dollars like these, it is only a matter of when—as we have seen, dollars are the only thing that matters (San Diego State in the Big East, anyone?).  A playoff will happen.

So why hasn’t it happened yet?  One can only believe that those in charge are able to see the $$$ writing on the wall, and are trying to figure out how to move toward a playoff AND keep the piggy bank.  A quick or radical change would likely involve splitting up the new revenue much more equally than will be required if they can do it slowly.

Media Reaction to BYU and the Big East

Now that BYU's discussions with the Big East have been reported to be over, several media reports are trying to make sense of it and to place "blame".   First of all, blame would assume that there was a desired outcome to begin with, but then should it not materialize, it would point the finger of fault at the offending unmet stipulation. 

And in this case, I have read several times that BYU's offense was in seeking to maintain TV rights to its home games.  "No other college team in a conference has been able to get this," they mock.  Well, perhaps we should point out that it has probably never previously, in any conference realignment discussions been a point of negotiation.  BYU is one of only two schools that have ever had its own TV deal.  Ever.  The other being Notre Dame.  And you can be sure that if Notre Dame were to join a conference, they would look to keep their existing TV deal at as a guaranteed minimum and to top it off with the additional TV revenue from conference road games. 

In that context, it doesn't seem unreasonable that a team would want to at least maintain its current standard of living (revenue and exposure) as it joins a conference.  In that context, it also seems rather naive to use the argument that no other team in college football has kept their home TV rights within a conference... no other team has ever been in a position to even try.

Senior Night on BYUtv

If you were not able to watch the senior night blanket ceremony after the New Mexico State game on Saturday, you need to. It can be seen here and starts at the 3:30 mark.

I have attend many senior nights in the past (final home game), and enjoyed the experience; however this year watching it on BYUtv, as it was televised for the first time, was perhaps my favorite.

The cameras were able to capture the feeling and emotion of the moment on the faces of the players (the score on the TV didn't hurt either).  I found my own memories and emotions welling up as I remembered the feeling of walking off the field for the last time.  It was a quasi Rudy moment...

Besides the emotion and facial expressions, it was great to see their relationship with Bronco reflected in that interaction.  I also enjoyed seeing their families with them--wife, kids, parents--and even a few legends (LaVell, Austin Collie, Danny Frazier, etc).

The only shame of the whole thing is that the stadium was empty.  No doubt this was a function of the mid-20 degree temps and the fact that it was taking place at around midnight--unfortunate collateral circumstances of the late ESPN start time.

Going forward, a great BYU tradition would be for all BYU fans to remain on Senior Night--for there to be a stadium full of appreciative fans saluting those who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to wear the blue and white.. whether they ever saw the field or not.  And whether you can attend in person or not, you should make it a point to catch it on TV, year in and year out.

Numbers on Helmets Flying Off

So last week I mentioned the incredible number of instances that BYU players were losing helmets.  The coaches made it a point of emphasis in team meetings last week and asked all of the players to tighten their chin straps.  The results were dramatic.  I only remember seeing 1-2 helmets come off in the Idaho State game, as opposed to the 15-25 per game previously (often multiple on the same play).

Well, it turns out that the NCAA has asked the referees to count instances of helmets coming off this season, and the number per this USA Today Article is 407 in the FBS through week 6.   That seems incredibly low--120 teams, 6 weeks--that means each team would only average losing one helmet every other game or so.  BYU alone was losing by my estimate 15-25 per game.  At an average of 20 per game, 120 instances  would be just from BYU... more than a quarter of them all.  So, either the number is severely underreported, or BYU really has a unique and significant problem on its hands.  Perhaps the answer is both... given the improvement in the last game after making changes, it would appear that much of it was on BYU; though the number 407 cannot possibly be an accurate count for all 120 teams through 6 weeks... more likely 3-4x that.