Seventh Access Bowl Unlikely

[lv99]

http://espn.go.com/college-football...ded-national-semifinals-rotation-sources-said

"This week sources told ESPN the seventh access bowl is, for all intents and purposes, "dead.""

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Nice of ESPN to post their position on the seventh bowl on their website. Not sure why they called it a "story".

 

[junglehusky]

Nice of ESPN to post their position on the seventh bowl on their website. Not sure why they called it a "story".

I don't mean to get in the way of a good simple conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we also consider the role the other conferences are playing in this? It was the BE, B12 and Pac12 involved in this, with the conferences formerly known as non-BCS AQ tagging along, and for all we know the ACC, BigTen and SEC are trying to marginalize everybody else.

The other possibility is that McMurphy is actually talking to people at other networks and there isn't a market for a seventh bowl. The only way we'll know that this is NOT the case is if NBC/Fox/whoever sign a deal and pony up 25 million. Seriously though, you should email the ESPN ombudsman and maybe they'll get McMurphy to say whether his sources are at ESPN only or if he actually has sources outside Disney (he did used to work at CBS).

EDIT - so so now he's reporting the little five will have guaranteed access within the existing six games. Will be interesting to see if this pans out.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I don't mean to get in the way of a good simple conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we also consider the role the other conferences are playing in this? It was the BE, B12 and Pac12 involved in this, with the conferences formerly known as non-BCS AQ tagging along, and for all we know the ACC, BigTen and SEC are trying to marginalize everybody else.

The other possibility is that McMurphy is actually talking to people at other networks and there isn't a market for a seventh bowl. The only way we'll know that this is NOT the case is if NBC/Fox/whoever sign a deal and pony up 25 million. Seriously though, you should email the ESPN ombudsman and maybe they'll get McMurphy to say whether his sources are at ESPN only or if he actually has sources outside Disney (he did used to work at CBS).

EDIT - so so now he's reporting the little five will have guaranteed access within the existing six games. Will be interesting to see if this pans out.

I am not saying that ESPN doesn't have the muscle to make this happen, although the BCS just decided to take the whole shindig out to bid, so who knows? Lots of moving parts.

 

[Fishy]

Has anyone noticed that ESPN, who produced 33 of the 35 bowl games last year, loudly, repeatedly and to whoever will listen insists that there is no market for a seventh "BCS" bowl.

The network who apparently thinks that a playoff is worth $500M a year, who believes that there should be a Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, who thinks that the GoDaddy Bowl in mid-January is a good idea, believes that there should be no seventh bowl.

Such a place to draw a line in the sands...makes me wonder what the real issue is there.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[Marty Jackson]

Look at the current rankings...
2 loss SEC teams would be ranked ahead of UofL had they won.
This is what it's going to be like for the next several years.

1 loss be teams going to podunk bowl while 2 loss big or acc going to contract bowl.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

It looks like the highest ranked school from the non-contract conferences is going to get a slot in one of the 6 major bowls, which is why the 7th bowl became unnecessary. The fact that the bowls have any say in the post season shows what is wrong with college football.

The good news is that I think this new bowl system will be a spectacular failure. I think the playoff will make the other bowls completely irrelevant, and ratings are going to tank. The networks will be choking on the massive rights fees they will have paid for games that no one watches, and will offer ungodly amounts of money for an 8 or 16 team playoff, if for no other reason than to escape the money pit that the bowl system will be for the networks.

 

[Marty Jackson]

It looks like the highest ranked school from the non-contract conferences is going to get a slot in one of the 6 major bowls, which is why the 7th bowl became unnecessary. The fact that the bowls have any say in the post season shows what is wrong with college football.

The good news is that I think this new bowl system will be a spectacular failure. I think the playoff will make the other bowls completely irrelevant, and ratings are going to tank. The networks will be choking on the massive rights fees they will have paid for games that no one watches, and will offer ungodly amounts of money for an 8 or 16 team playoff, if for no other reason than to escape the money pit that the bowl system will be for the networks.

I hope you are correct on both counts...

 

[junglehusky]

I agree that the push for expanding the playoff will happen, and maybe some more of the minor bowls will be contracted. But I think the playoff expansion beyond 4 will take a few more years than some people would like. I imagine the "access games" in the rotation will probably be as successful in non-playoff years as they are in playoff years. Some of the higher bowl games outside of the access games will continue to be lucrative. The major bowls will continue to have power and input though the conferences are driving the bus.

Are you saying the networks will be overpaying for the new big bowls, or that they overpaid for the 2nd and lower tier bowls?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I agree that the push for expanding the playoff will happen, and maybe some more of the minor bowls will be contracted. But I think the playoff expansion beyond 4 will take a few more years than some people would like. I imagine the "access games" in the rotation will probably be as successful in non-playoff years as they are in playoff years. Some of the higher bowl games outside of the access games will continue to be lucrative. The major bowls will continue to have power and input though the conferences are driving the bus.

Are you saying the networks will be overpaying for the new big bowls, or that they overpaid for the 2nd and lower tier bowls?

$100MM for the Rose and $80 for the Champions Bowl. Do you realize how will play in these games? The Champions Bowl would likely be Georgia and Oklahoma this year (Alabama and KState would be in the playoff), and the Rose would be Nebraska and Stanford. Is there $80MM of advertising available to watch two 2 loss teams play an exhibition game at year end?

As is, only about 3 bowl games draw better ratings than the NCAA Sweet 16, and I expect that number to drop to zero once the football playoff starts. Who is going to care about the bowl games when there is a playoff? The non-title game bowls already saw a huge dropoff once the BCS was formed, and attendance has been dropping anyway. Now the BCS went and made the bowls even more irrelevant.

 

[junglehusky]

Fewer people watching the Champs/Rose bowl games? I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem likely to me. I admit it's just a hunch. But if the ratings are going to go to zero, how the heck did the conference honchos convince TV to fork over that much money? Talk about selling the brooklyn bridge...

 

[ZooCougar]

This new format seems like a bunch of half measures. The playoff is too exclusive, and the next tier of bows will be inconsequential.

 

[Vowelguy]

I. Seriously though, you should email the ESPN ombudsman and maybe they'll get McMurphy to say whether his sources are at ESPN only or if he actually has sources outside Disney (he did used to work at CBS).

I'm still waiting for just ONE of the conspiracy theorists to actually put his money where his mouth is and actually contact the ESPN ombudsman.

 

[junglehusky]

I'm still waiting for just ONE of the conspiracy theorists to actually put his money where his mouth is and actually contact the ESPN ombudsman.

I have seen some of those types of comments by other BE fans in other places (can't remember which media, maybe a newspaper at one of the other schools). It doesn't take that much effort to write an email so I expect some of our conspiracy theorists already have done so. And IMHO it's actually a fair point that the ombudsman should address.

But anyway, can we now agree that McMurphy's reporting on this issue was at least accurate?

 

[RMoore1999]

This new format seems like a bunch of half measures. The playoff is too exclusive, and the next tier of bows will be inconsequential.

And the existing format isn't full of half-measures? The bowls under the new system will be no less inconsequential than they are under the existing BcS.

 

[junglehusky]

OK, this is a year old so it was before the ESPN/BE negotiating window but it touches on the reporting/business conflict of interest. Would be interesting to update it.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7149965/espn-middle-college-realignment

But the dangerous conflict of interest is not that ESPN is inappropriately throwing around its money and weight. It's that while journalists at ESPN are ferreting out the latest tip about conference realignment, the network's programming people are sitting in another part of the Bristol campus with inside information -- details of which they must keep to themselves in order to honor the business relationships.

ESPN serves its audience with one team and its business partners with another. The network navigates this world by being so big that Wildhack's business team members rarely cross paths with ESPN's journalists. And if they do, they know they're not supposed to exchange information.

Hardly a confidence-inspiring quote. Though I love the name "Wildhack".