The Playoff Under our Noses

With another glorious college football season about to start once again, writers, pundits and prognosticators are already throwing out picks for how the BCS games will shape up. And with every discussion of the BCS, there are the inevitable discussions of potential controversies ("What if Penn State is undefeated and there are one-loss Big 12 and SEC teams?!?"). And with every mention of controversy, there are inevitable debates on whether we should scrap the BCS and go to a playoff. This of course is the Holy Grail of 90% of college football fans, while the other 10% view it as an assault on the hallowed sanctity of the bowl system. After all, how could we go on without our precious Rose Parade each New Year's Day?

But what's surprised me over the past three years is that I never hear anyone mention one semi-obvious fact: we already have a playoff, separate from the bowls. Since 2006 when the BCS added the plus-one, we've had a two-team playoff called the BCS title game. Last year, Florida and Oklahoma played in this playoff to decide the national title, while eight other teams played in the existing four BCS bowls. So what would be the harm in adding two more teams to the BCS system (which has already moved from 8 to 10 teams), leaving eight teams to play in the bowls, but adding two more to the playoff? The BCS title game would then be preceded by two semifinal games featuring the four highest-ranked teams. Under my plan, this season's BCS schedule would then look like this:

• Dec. 30: BCS Semifinal #1 (Atlanta) & #2 (Dallas)
• Dec. 31: Sugar Bowl (New Orleans) & Orange Bowl (Miami)
• Jan. 1: Rose Bowl (Pasadena) & Fiesta Bowl (Glendale)
• Jan. 6: BCS Title game (Pasadena)

The BCS title game sites could continue to rotate among the four current cities, but the semifinal game sites open up a whole new opportunity. These games could rotate among warm-weather cities around the country, much like the Super Bowl. San Diego, Houston, San Antonio, Tampa are all potential options, as college football fans are more than willing to travel for their teams. Waves of new revenue, an inclusive four-team playoff, the preservation of the major bowls, and a tightening up of the bloated bowl schedule: what's not to love?

 
Darkness is Spreading

I was happy to see ESPN's Tim Keown shed light on the most dastardly, yet low-profile rule in sports: The NFL blackout policy. This has been on my mind for several weeks and I have a strong feeling that the issue will blow up into a major story this fall.

The league's policy is that if a game is not sold out within 72 hours of kickoff, the game is blacked out on all TV sets within 75 miles of the stadium. As harsh as that sounds, the blackout rule was even worse in the past: prior to 1973, all NFL games were blacked out in the home market, regardless of whether the game sold out. Yes, even the Super Bowl used to be blacked out in the host city.

While the rule was originally implemented to help owners maximize ticket sales and gameday revenue, the NFL blackout is hopelessly outdated. The idea that fans in Oakland with Sunday Ticket on their HDTVs are going to leap off their couches and head to the stadium to watch JaMarcus Russell live is simplistic at best and insulting at worst. The blackouts are more likely to exacerbate the attendance problem, since embittered local fans at home are deprived of the product and can't develop as strong a bond with the team. When the fans can't see the atmosphere of their home team's crowd, they literally don't know what they're missing by staying home.

The problem is only going to get worse this year, with ticket sales sufffering due to the slow economy. This is going to sneak up as a major issue once the season starts, as more and more NFL markets will face blackouts throughout the season. In Keown's article, an NFL spokesman maintains that the policy ain't broke, so the league won't fix it, economy be damned. This is a perfect example of institutional inertia at its worst: If Roger Goodell (or anyone for that matter) were starting a sports league today, is there any chance that they would create a blackout policy? Goodell needs to recognize that this recession is the perfect opportunity to rid the league of the most archaic, punitive, short-sighted policy in all of sports.