ESPN officials are laughing all the way to the bank after the network reached a four-year, $500 agreement last week to telecast Bowl Championship Series games from 2011-14.
"The fact is, the postseason is greatly undervalued," former NCAA president Cedric Dempsey, pictured above, told the Orange County Register earlier this year.
Scott M. Reid of the Register writes: "BCS officials have spent the week congratulating themselves in private over the ESPN deal that is a 56 percent jump over the BCS' current 4-year, $320-million contract with Fox. But even if you figure in ABC's $30-million annual fee to televise the Rose Bowl the deal is but a fraction of what CBS pays out each year to televise the NCAA basketball tournament and what some longtime college and conference administrators say an eight or 16 team post-season would command.
"CBS's 11-year NCAA basketball tournament deal is worth $6.2-billion. In other words by taking a playoff tournament off the table, college football is costing itself more than $400-million a season."
Why oh why do people not get this. The BCS DID NOT leave money on the table. The 65 BCS schools will not share the loot with the 250+ other D1 schools. The postseason today is run by the BCS. A playoff would be run by the NCAA and the money split amongst all members. The BCS is maximizing their haul in this deal. A playoff kills the BCS and gives control back to the NCAA. This will simply not happen, so just stop pretending that if only the BCS was less stupid, you'd get your precious playoffs.
Posted by: Peter | November 26, 2008 at 08:55 AM