WSJ: How to fix college football conferences? Make them like English soccer

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000...794344398.html

Originally Posted by Wall Street Journal

For years, college football was its own strange, self-contained ecosystem. You knew money was coming in and going out, but the sources, and the amounts, were always a bit of a mystery.

That's no longer the case. The business of college football has been shoved to the forefront in recent months by the continuing national soap opera known as conference realignment. Last time we checked, Nebraska had jumped ship to the Big Ten from the Big 12, Colorado had vacated the Big 12 for the Pac-10 and upstart Boise State had made a leap to the Mountain West Conference.


After enough rumors, threats and blood oaths to power an entire season of telenovelas, Texas this week announced it was staying put in the Big 12 rather than absconding to the Pac-10.


Regardless of whether this is the last of these eruptions, none of this maneuvering has done what every rational college-football fan would like it to do: solve some of the oddball problems that have dogged college football since the advent of the Bowl Championship Series, a five-game bowl showcase at the end of the season whose participants are chosen from a pool that excludes some schools.


The larger problem is the essential lopsidedness of the sport and the fundamental inequities it creates. In college football, the traditional powers tend to play in large conferences with other well-known schools. Together, they tend to sell more tickets, make more lucrative bowl appearances and above all, negotiate better TV deals. All this helps them to perpetuate the system by winning more consistently and recruiting better coaches and players.


For smaller schools that are trying to build their programs, the system seems designed to frustrate them at every turn. Even as the money in college football grows—BCS revenue from tickets, television and title sponsorships totaled $155 million last year alone—the gulf between the haves and have-nots seems to be widening by the day.


At the same time, however, not many people are eager to mess with college football's structure. Many fans like the traditional conferences and bowl games, and above all else, they would rather see traditional rivals play one another than see games between upstart teams. And with giant stadiums to fill, it's crucial for the sport to pander to the tastes of its fans.
There's no governing authority that can make unilateral decisions for all of college football—in fact, that's another part of the problem. But what if there were? Is there a model anywhere in the sports world for a system that could erase some of the chronic problems with college football without killing the golden goose?


In a word, yes. It's the English Premier League.


The EPL, which is the world's richest and most prominent professional soccer league, consists of 20 teams. At the end of the season, however, the three worst teams are demoted, or "relegated," to another, less-prestigious division of professional soccer—the Football League Championship.


At the same time, the top three clubs in the Football League Championship are promoted to the Premier League for the following season. The system works because it creates both opportunity and incentive for teams at both ends of the standings.


The successful teams in the lower tier can rise to the big league, where they earn more money and have a shot at the top honors, while the weak teams in the fat, pampered division face a dire fate—both in terms of prestige and revenue—if they don't stay competitive year in and year out.
This system would never work in Marxist professional leagues like the NFL, which are built on the equal distribution of revenue. But for college, it's actually a nice fit.


To implement a similar plan, the existing conferences would have to be redone. We would divide the country into quadrants. Each quadrant would have its own conference consisting of a blend of teams from existing conferences. These "megaconferences" would then be split into two divisions, one for the smaller teams that don't make much money and one for the behemoths.


Teams in the upper leagues, or "supergroups," would be eligible for BCS bowl games and receive a larger share of the conference's shared revenue. But at the end of the season, the two worst teams would be relegated to the lower division, or "subgroup," where there is no BCS eligibility and where the money isn't as generous.


Likewise, two of the scrappy teams in the lower division who had the best records would be allowed to play their way into the upper division.


"I think it's a fabulous idea," former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach said.

"Now I'm not one of those guys that thinks the U.S. needs to do everything like Europe.…[But] there needs to be a healthy dose of open-mindedness to new ideas."


One of the keys to the new system is that it would maintain one of the biggest selling points for fans and TV networks—traditional rivalries. Most of the old conferences like the Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC would be largely intact in the larger framework of the megaconferences.


Existing networks like the Big Ten Network could continue on with the realigned conference that took most of its members. The added suspense of relegation and promotion might even help boost ticket sales and TV ratings late in the season as well.


"If everyone did it, I guess it would be possible," said Jim Muldoon, who, in his role as Pac-10's associate commissioner, has handled the league's football scheduling since 1978. "You do want some schedule certainty, though, particularly with home games, because they are revenue opportunities."


Under the current system, schedules are planned years in advance with most teams playing between seven and nine conference games over a 12-game season. No major overhauls would be needed in this system. Instead, the winners and losers in both divisions of the megaconference would be determined by a points system.


Each supergroup team would have to play eight games against conference opponents. Any victory would earn a point—but to make sure these teams don't try to succeed by scheduling patsies, a loss to a subgroup team in any conference would result in a one-point deduction.


Subgroup teams would earn one point for any win but would be able to better themselves quickly by playing supergroup teams—a win against one of these big fish would be worth two points.


"That kind of concept, all the little schools would be as happy as can be," UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said. "But I can't think of any BCS schools that would vote for it."

—David Biderman contributed to this article.



To solve some of the most pressing problems in college football without monkeying too much with its traditions, we propose a system based on the relegation and promotion used in English soccer. Under this system, smaller schools would receive more of the TV-rights pie while being allowed to play their way into contention for a larger share of the money and bids to BCS bowls. Established schools would get to keep their traditional rivalries and scheduling practices. And yes, Notre Dame could continue to be an island all unto itself.

MEGACONFERENCES: Teams from the four major football conferences—the Pac-10, Big Ten, SEC and Big 12—would essentially stay together. They would pick up members from the other conferences, which would break up. The megaconference teams would continue to play eight in-conference opponents and traditional rivals. These conferences would have two divisions—an upper and a lower.

SUPERGROUPS: The first of the two divisions would initially consist of high-revenue teams. They would be eligible for BCS bowls and would receive larger portions of the conference's shared football revenue. They would earn one standings point for any win, but would lose a point if they lost to a team from a subgroup. The bottom two teams in points that season would be relegated to the subgroup for the next season.

SUBGROUPS: This group would initially be composed of schools that had lower football revenue. They wouldn't be eligible for BCS bowls and would receive smaller portions of the conference's overall football revenue. They would earn one point for beating a subgroup team and two points for beating a supergroup team. The two top teams in points would be promoted to the supergroup for the next season.

RELEGATION: The member schools in each new conference could decide how many teams should be relegated and promoted each season—we decided to start with two. This would create excitement for fans and TV networks late in the season as teams fought for promotion to the supergroup or to avoid relegation. The bowl system would stay the same, but the bowl committees would have to change how they make selections.