Conference Commissioners Meet, Playoff To Be Discussed

NY Times, Pete Thamel

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/sports/ncaafootball/talks-begin-with-an-open-mind-on-college-football-playoff.html

NEW ORLEANS — Street sweepers washed away the celebratory beads and the other remnants from the revelry that followed Monday night’s Bowl Championship Series title game. And as fans poured out of the city, 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick met Tuesday to begin cleaning up the future of college football’s postseason.

The most important thing that came out of the meeting was a sea change in the openness toward a potential four-team playoff. Little progress toward a decision was made, with Pacific-12 Commissioner Larry Scott describing the meetings as “more philosophical than conceptual.”

A decision is expected to come before July 4, with five to seven meetings over the next few months set to determine the sport’s postseason future. But the tenor has clearly changed.

“It was far more open,” said Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, who added, “Everyone here fully participated in it.”

Delany had been one of the commissioners who did not want to even discuss a playoff four years ago, but he described himself as “interested, curious and fully participating” on Tuesday. He said he would meet this month with his conference’s presidents and athletic directors to talk about it further.

As the variables involved in a four-team playoff were discussed, many questions need to be answered for the idea to come to fruition. Will the bowls be involved? Will cities bid for the title game, Super Bowl style? Will university presidents support the change? How much would a playoff, which could double the B.C.S.’s annual $125 million payment from ESPN, hurt the finances of other bowls?

On Tuesday, however, the conversation itself hinted at progress toward a playoff.

“The environment has changed in the sense that we had five people who didn’t want to talk about it of the seven founders,” Delany said, comparing Tuesday with four years ago. “And I think the seven founders were the conferences plus Notre Dame, and four years ago five of us didn’t want to have the conversation. Now people want to have the conversation.”

The four-team playoff was among eight or nine options discussed Tuesday. Others included minor changes to the current B.C.S. formula; eliminating the entire B.C.S. except for a No. 1-vs.-No. 2 title game; and playing the bowls as they exist and reseeding everyone after those games for a championship game between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams.

The discussions come after Alabama’s 21-0 victory over Louisiana State was the second-lowest-rated B.C.S. title game ever, and after the ratings for all five B.C.S. games were the lowest rated on average. Some of that had to do with a switch to cable television — ESPN broadcast the Alabama-L.S.U. game — but it is clear that midweek bowl games like the Orange Bowl this year, the lowest-rated B.C.S. game ever, do not work well as standalone games.

The B.C.S.’s executive director, Bill Hancock, stressed that Tuesday’s conversations were preliminary. “They have a lot of cans to kick down the road,” he said.

Most of the commissioners stuck to the script as outlined by Ari Fleischer, the B.C.S. consultant and former White House press secretary, who instructed those involved to say they had a good conversation and refer all other questions to Hancock.

“No decisions were made today and it was a very good, quality conversation,” the Southeastern Conference commissioner, Mike Slive, said. “I’m going to stop there.”

Tuesday’s meetings offered a hint of change, but also a sense that the process will be slow, contentious and carefully scripted. The process has just begun, and there is little indication of exactly where it is headed.