Argument: Playoffs Would Not Benefit Fans

College football fans tend to have lower budgets than those of NFL fans. Specifically because there are many more colleges and owing to the lower number of fans per game, there usually aren’t deals on travel. As such travel between grounds is expensive. Given that playoffs result in more games being played it is apparent that supporters of the various teams will incur more cost. Further, if their team loses where they might have instead won a lesser competition, the supporters will likely be less happy than they are now. As well as this, when a team does win in the playoffs, the people watching that team face a very high burst of costs should they want to continue to support that team.

Further, if the fans do have to stay at home they will as a result be subjected to watching a game with a half filled stadium with no real atmosphere. [1]

[1] Purdy Mark. “College football playoff sounds great but is a bad idea.” Mercury news. 8/01/2010 http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&amp;orgId=574&amp;topicId=100021407&amp;docId=l:1106674787&amp;start=23

Candidate 1: "There is an impetus for playoffs among fans, with 63% saying that playoffs similar to those used in college basketball should be implemented.

Further, given that the games would have implications for the national championships they would not suffer a loss in attendance given that right now the “Bowl” games are viewed by most fans as being meaningless exercises. Given that most view these games as meaningless and simply go for the camaraderie and the pageantry they feel, it seems logical that in playoff games that have ramifications for a legitimate championship they are more likely to go. Fans already do this for college basketball which has sixty extra games and doesn’t even happen during a time when people are off from work for the Christmas and New Year break. [1]

[1] Starin, Harvey. “There is nothing wrong with college football playoffs.” Sun Sentinel. 01/07/2010 http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-01-07/news/1001060624_1_college-football-playoffs-playoff-system-playoff-games"
Candidate 2: "The Bowl system results in a few incredibly important matches for players. As such, offensive coordinators for teams bring out every single trick that they have in the book to win them.

Every player involved in the Bowl system goes all out to win these events because they are the only televised matches that most players will ever see. Given that that is true, Bowls have a reputation for being some of the most exciting and spectacular matches of the year. The viewing audience for Bowls is disproportionately high because of this.

As such, the exposure for teams participating in Bowls is significantly higher and would be lowered if the resolution were to pass, the inevitable result of lower viewing figures for the individual matchups. [1]

[1] Klosterman, Chuck. “No college football playoff, please.” ESPN. 01/02/2007 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=klosterman/070103"
Candidate 3: "Playoffs Result in More Injuries and Hurt Academics

The toll on the bodies of players in American football is much greater than that of other sports, primarily due to the high frequency of physical impacts in the sport. To be able to get through a season, players often need to play through more minor injuries and thus need fairly long rest periods between games. However, playoffs would all be run within a small window of time, meaning the accumulation of injuries would be greater and thus players would be more likely to risk much more serious injuries just to be in the championship game.

The quality of the championship game would suffer significantly because of this, but also players might riddle themselves with long term injuries that they could come to forget in the future.

Alternatively, players with an interest in their long-term careers would be likely to pull out of the bowl system altogether.

Further, football players often have to take a lot of time away from classes in order to play football games under the status quo. A lot of the time players catch this work back up in the holiday. However, this would be impossible under the new system as the entire Christmas holiday would be potentially lost to playoffs. [1]

[1] Scripps Howard News Service. “Florida president to push playoff plan at SEC meetings.” ESPN. 29/05/2007 http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2885646"
Candidate 4: "The existence of the Bowls is simply a way for the BCS businessmen to earn large amounts of money. Under the status quo, the BCS businessmen get a share of all revenues generated from each Bowl. Further, the money is also then divided further, with the television network that covers the game taking some of the revenue. Further, given the games aren’t played on home turf, instead on a stadium that is hired for that day’s play, money is lost on travel.

By comparison, under the proposition, if high seeded teams win consistently, they would play at home, not lose money to the BCS officials and thus gain significantly extra levels of revenue just by running business in-house. [1]

[1] “Wetzel’s playoff plan.” Yahoo Sports. 7/12/2009 http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-ncaafplayoff120709"
Candidate 5: "Playoffs Would Earn Less money

BCS makes consistent money for the Universities and colleges that partake in the system. The issue is that, should a playoff system be implemented, it is likely that these institutions would seek to undermine it in order to simply revert back to the old system. Should they withdraw their teams, the overall skill ceiling of college football would lower significantly.

The fact that playoffs would occur during the Christmas period also means that owing to the cold weather at the time, the number of fans that would be drawn to the stadiums to pay money would be significantly lower than in regular season. The “Bowls” system makes sense because the only one near the Christmas period is the national championship which is considered high profile enough to draw a crowd. [1]

[1] Purdy Mark. “College football playoff sounds great but is a bad idea.” Mercury news. 8/01/2010 http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&amp;orgId=574&amp;topicId=100021407&amp;docId=l:1106674787&amp;start=23"
Candidate 6: "Playoffs Lead To More Exposure

The issue with the BCS system, as mentioned above, is that teams selected by an often broken and biased BCS mechanism receive more money and exposure than more talented, harder working institutions, making them more likely to be selected by the same mechanism in the future. Standout teams that only perform that well for a season are able to get significantly more exposure under the proposition model.

Due to the very high profile nature of playoff games- as well as the fact that there would simply be more playoff games with palpably fair and meritocratic outcomes later in the playoffs- more people will watch college football. Specifically, including more teams in a playoff based competition will mean that more fans get their favourites in to the playoffs and as such more people watch. Secondly, the increased number of matches’ means that it is more likely that fans will be able to catch another match if they cannot watch one. Finally, should an upset happen, the amount of interest generated in the subsequent match is incredibly great and generates significantly more exposure for both teams participating. [1]

[1] Sanderson, Matthew. “The conservative case for college football reform.” The Hill. 06/01/2010 http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/74567-conservative-case-for-college-football-reform"
Candidate 7: "Under the BCS, every single game is important as losing the BCS is often catastrophic when it comes to qualification for any of the subsequent Bowls. As such, the playoffs mean that regular season games become less relevant as winning and losing only has an effect on seed and qualification becomes a lot easier. Further, BCS builds up the need for an undefeated season for certain teams to be able to qualify.

As such teams are more likely to give everything to every single match during the regular season under BCS, unlike in some leagues where a clear winner will emerge very early on and not have to play nearly at 100% capacity in order to win the conference overall. [1]

[1] Klosterman, Chuck. “No college football playoff, please.” ESPN. 01/02/2007 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=klosterman/070103"
Candidate 8: "As at least 18 year olds, college football players know the risks of injury that college football might entail and should they choose to continue playing it is their right to do so. If they get injured they have consented and are not harming anyone else. Further, the teams that get through the playoffs are most likely to be the teams that have won the most games. Generally in football, the teams that do win the most games have suffered the fewest injuries on the dint of them being very strong at protecting their running backs and quarterbacks.

Academically, football players are mandated to attend a minimum number of classes and often are better at attending classes than many other students. As such, playoffs would be fine, especially considering they come during the holiday period where often students are home with their families and not working anyway. [1]

[1] Schad, Joe. “Auburn coach Tuberville calls for playoff system.” ESPN 05/10/2006 http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2612789"
Candidate 9: "The practice of having multiple “Bowls” creates a system where more teams “Win” at the end of the season. Whilst college football is serious, it is understood that college teams’ players participate in collegiate events in order to gain the skills and experience that will enable them to join NFL teams. As such, the participation of talented youngsters in college football is dependent on collegiate tournaments being seen as fair, impartial and meritocratic tests of players’ and teams’ skill. Confidence in the meritocratic nature of the system is not enough to guarantee the interest of the best players, however. Returns on the investment of time and effort and opportunity that players engage in must be high. The odds of gaining recognition as a good player within the collegiate system must outweigh the risk of losing out on the chance to participate in high profile games.

In a situation where playoffs are introduced, only one team stands victorious at the end, the others lose and are inevitably forgotten about. This is incredibly discouraging for those players who do lose, and might cause them to drop out of football in the future, which significantly harms the NFL’s pool later on, impacting significantly on the national pastime. Deterred by the risk of sinking into obscurity, junior players may avoid participating in college teams altogether.

Further, the concept of playoffs often results in weaker teams defeating ones who have had a much better regular season. Ultimately this is less fair, as the side which consistently performs well should be awarded more accolades than a side that gets lucky during a game which happens to have been assigned a greater weighting within the BCS’s algorithms. Again, when there is an upset, the harm to the losing team is often greater than the benefit to a winning team that is likely to lose in the next round of the contest. [1]

[1] Davis, Michael. Kane, Time. “Would a college football playoff be fair?” Real Clear Politics. 12/11/2009 http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/11/12/would_a_college_football_playoff_be_fair_96533.html"
Candidate 10: "Banning Playoffs Offer Greater Fairness

The BCS system unfairly discriminates against 45 of the 120 teams that participate in college football. Given that some of these teams participate in non-BCS leagues they can perform incredibly well and still not get into the BCS. Further, the BCS system is flawed beyond this given that both Boise State and Utah were deemed unsuitable for the competition despite the fact that they went undefeated in the seasons before their rejection. The winner of the BCS is meant to be the best collegiate football team in the country. However, if undefeated teams are unable to compete it makes the system incredibly unfair, and reduces the legitimacy of the BCS title itself, undermining the value of the competition overall.

Finally, as noted football analyst Michael Shull notes, due to flaws in the computer algorithms used to allocated BCS places, some teams that do well for a single season as an outlier or due to a positive change for the team do not get into the cup. This potentially means that the same teams consistently get into the cup and gain $17 million in revenue regardless of whether they win or lose. As such this system ensures that those who do get selected just get richer and better and thus become more likely to be picked by the computer system in the future. [1]

[1] Shull, Michael. “BCS No More: Football Needs Playoffs to eliminate the BS.” College Sports Fans. http://www.collegesports-fans.com/articles/college-football-playoffs_120308.html"
Candidate 11: "Playoffs Offer More Suspense

Within the playoff system every game during the playoffs is a knockout. As such, every single game in the playoffs carries the potential risk of excluding the losing team from the remainder of that season’s games. This works incredibly well to build up tension, because favourites have lost to teams that were believed to be a lot worse. With history supporting this idea all players and fans are likely to feel tension during the playoff games which directly contributes to the enjoyment of a game. Further, given the prevalence of late game comebacks in American football, due the ever present threat of an interception, it means that fans are still likely to enjoy games even when their team is likely to lose going into the later quarters.

Further, the playoff system still significantly incentivises good work during the regular season. The top ranked team would face the lowest ranked team in the first round and gain home field advantage for being the higher seed. It is beneficial for both sides because under BCS, the second team has no guarantee that it would even be included and the former team would not be guaranteed home field advantage. [1]

[1] “Wetzel’s playoff plan.” Yahoo Sports. 7/12/2009 http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-ncaafplayoff120709"

There is an impetus for playoffs among fans, with 63% saying that playoffs similar to those used in college basketball should be implemented.

Further, given that the games would have implications for the national championships they would not suffer a loss in attendance given that right now the “Bowl” games are viewed by most fans as being meaningless exercises. Given that most view these games as meaningless and simply go for the camaraderie and the pageantry they feel, it seems logical that in playoff games that have ramifications for a legitimate championship they are more likely to go. Fans already do this for college basketball which has sixty extra games and doesn’t even happen during a time when people are off from work for the Christmas and New Year break. [1]

[1] Starin, Harvey. “There is nothing wrong with college football playoffs.” Sun Sentinel. 01/07/2010 http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-01-07/news/1001060624_1_college-football-playoffs-playoff-system-playoff-games
