Leather Helmet Blog

At first glance there is no clear relationship between, what I see as, the inexorable drift toward a playoff system in college football and the escalating salaries of university coaches and athletic administrators. However, there is a connection. Each phenomenon is driven by expanded demand for college football as an entertainment property.

Football (and to a much less extent basketball) are unique college sports. There is no substitute for either due to the huge difference between the college game and the corresponding pro version. If pro sports could somehow manage to capture the spirit and passion that draws fans to the college game there would be nothing to debate. College football and basketball would survive at a greatly reduced level. Probably at about the same level that college baseball enjoys today. But pro sports do not offer an alternative for college fans.

In my opinion the element missing from pro football is school connection itself. Do you really care that the Falcons are playing Dallas rather that Seattle next week?  Seattle is just another city. College sports give us a different level of interest and personal enlistment.

In a segmented society, big-time college sports are one of the few avenues for large-scale communal participation. Mass college sports cross class lines. They induce large numbers of people in a region to stop, at the same time, and share common emotional experiences.

The crowds at big-time college sporting events do not sit passively, the way they do at a movie theater. They roar, suffer and invent chants (especially at Duke basketball games). Mass college sports are the emotional hubs at the center of vast networks of analysis, criticism and conversation. They generate loyalties that are less harmful than ethnic loyalties and emotional morality plays that are at once completely meaningless and totally consuming.

The move to football playoffs and the continued increases in coaching salaries is driven by the owners of TV outlets (supply - I see the colleges as labor and not suppliers - more like sub-contractors) need to fill increasing hours of programming time. Viewers (demand) continue to show by their viewing habits that we are nowhere near to the equilibrium point for college football programming. Bowl game viewership was higher than ever this year despite the number of games available and there is talk of a new sports network (by Fox) to challenge ESPN.

SEC schools are getting an extra $6 million per year from the new TV contract. Those funds will be employed to build the value of their individual brands. Brands are built by winning games and championships. NCAA football has the most effective player salary cap institutionalized in its structure - the money can't go there. The governing body also artificially limits the pool of coaches by restricting the number of coaches that are employed by member institutions. To build the brand the school must win more games - the school can't bid (cash) for better players - that leaves coaches. Of course, schools may attract better players with an argument that it wins more games and will allow the player to demand more money when he goes to the NFL - but that too comes back to coaching.  Whether any of this should be happening is irrelevant. Demand will be supplied, ultimately.

A college football playoff will occur. The only question is when. A playoff will begin just as soon as the dollars involved reach a high enough level compared to the bowl system. Playoff opponents use a number of arguments against playoffs and most of them are correct. Destroy the bowl system - yep. Playoff will expand like basketball - you bet! I don't buy the devaluation of the regular season argument, however. Will it be less fun to beat Tech if a playoff game follows? Will UGA , having made the playoff, withhold players and lose against Auburn or Tech like the Colts did this year? I don't think so. Remember, this is not about determining a «true» national champion. It's about selling six-packs and five- dollar-foot-longs! Woof!

Update: Here is another step toward a playoff - the Big 10 is next.