Wow. The old "If if ain't broke, don't fix it." principle. I can dig that. And like I said I don't see a playoff coming to fruition any time soon so you'll be able to revel in the misery for quite a few more years. :lol:
I don't understand why we can't have a hybrid of both. Is it all or nothing, playoffs or bowls? Is it that hard to figure out? Maybe we should write some algorithms so that computers can tell us what to do.
Yes it is that hard. These bowls pay out big money and to do that they have to sell out a stadium. Right now they get to pick their teams and have conference tie-ins to insure that they can get teams that are close enough for fans to travel and to attract a TV audience. If a 16-team playoff happens apart from the bowls, then the TV money and the most enthusiastic fans will be going to playoff games and the bowls will be left with second-tier teams and won't get TV contracts or fill their stadiums. If the bowls are included in the playoff, then they lose their right to schedule the date of the game and the teams participating. Take the Peach-fil-A Bowl for instance. Right now they play on New Years eve, (great TV time) and take a team from the SEC and a team from the ACC (fill the stadium). If they were part of a playoff, they might have to play on December 11 and be assigned BYU and Washington. Poor TV timng and unlikely to fill the stadium with Western fans. The bowls want nothing to do with a playoff.
I doubt the peach bowl will be sold out. I've gotten 4 different e-mails urging me to buy more tickets or forward the e-mail to friends. But I get your points. So who gets the money for ticket sales of the bowl games? Is it split between the bowl and the arena? Does the bowl get part of concessions too? I'm thinking a night playoff game in Tiger stadium would sell out, no matter the opposition. The problem would be who gets the sales.
It isn't just the ticket sales to the game. That is a fraction of the revenue. It is the $$ spent in the city that hosts the bowl. Hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping, etc. That is why the matchups can be so critical. LSU in NOLA is a good turnout, but many Tiger fans will not stay down there for 3-5 days, the same way out of town fans do. Another example is La. Tech in Shreveport this year. Great for them to be in a bowl game, and they will have plenty of support in the stands, but those people will drive home after the game, instead of taking a hotel room and spending $ in the community.
LSU might be worried that we don't sell out the allotment for LSU fans, but the rest of the seats will sell out. GT is located two miles from the Peach Bowl and they haven't been to the Peach Bowl since 2000. Since then, the bowls they have gone to were the Seattle Bowl vs Stanford (2001), Silicon Valley Bowl vs Fresno State (2002), Humanitarian Bowl vs Tulsa (2003), Champs Sports Bowl vs 6-5 Syracuse (2004), Emerald Bowl vs 7-4 Utah (2005), Gator Bowl vs West Virginia (2006), Humanitarian Bowl vs Fresno State (2007). I imagine this bowl against the defending national champs is going to be a huge deal in Atlanta.
I expect OU and Florida will be a great game and I'm looking forward to watching it. My biggest problem is that UT sat home for the BigXII CG watching 2 teams that it beat. OU and UT had the same record, plus UT beat OU. That's just stupid.
But since TT beat UT, and OU beat TT, the head to head is not enough. A beauty contest(BCS points) agreed upon before the season, is the only way. And OU beat TT like a rented mule as well. If they don't like it, they should change it before the season. I can't stand fanbases that only rail against the system when they get screwed(Georgia!). If it's so bad, then the other teams in the Big 12 need to speak up, before the season. The team that really got screwed is TT. They don't even get a BCS game.
