Why College Football Needs a Playoff

     In a country filled with a wide array of amateur athletics, football is king.  Football draws the most excitement, the most fans, and the most money.  So, you'd think that everything would be done to ensure that those three things were guaranteed for the betterment of the sport.  Or so you'd think.
     According to its website, the BCS, or Bowl Championship Series, is "designed to ensure that the two top-rated teams in the country meet in the national championship game, and to create exciting and competitive matchups among eight other highly regarded teams in four other bowl games."  Sounds great, right?  Just one problem; the BCS utilizes the judgment of a computerized formula to determine the top two teams.
     I'm not saying that Auburn and Oregon didn't deserve to be in Glendale on Monday, because they did.  Both teams had phenomenal seasons.  However, they are not giving excellent non-AQ schools a chance.  TCU, for example, finished the season undefeated.  They beat three ranked opponents and became the first team from a non-AQ conference to win the Rose Bowl since the BCS began in 1998.  Yet, a computer can't predict what TCU would have done if they played either Auburn or Oregon. 
     Division I-A football is the only NCAA sport to not determine a true champion.  Even the college football subdivisions utilize a playoff system.  What holds the BCS back?
     First of all, the BCS addresses the prospect of a playoff.  "The NCAA membership has not voted for the creation of a playoff.  Given that context, the conferences created the BCS in order to match the two top teams in a bowl game while maintaining the importance of the regular season and preserving the bowl system."
     Now, if so much value is placed in the regular season, how did Boise St. fall two places in the BCS standings after beating Hawaii 42-7 in November?  It doesn't appear that regular season wins mean so much after all. 
      Secondly, and most importantly, money and power.  The BCS bowls generate a ridiculous amount of money.  The CEO of the Sugar Bowl, Paul Hoolahan, made $607,500 in 2007...all for putting on one game.  Hoolahan isn't the only one getting rich.  That same 2007 Sugar Bowl turned in an $11.6 Million profit.  Funny thing is, the participating schools aren't as fortunate.
     According to the NCAA budget report released last year, 106 of the 120 athletic departments that play I-A football lost money in 2009.  Ironically, making a bowl usually causes a school to LOSE money.  When a team makes a bowl game, depending on the size of the venue, the school is required to purchase a certain amount of tickets to then re-sell to it's fans.  But lately, these schools have struggled to sell their allotment.  For the 2009 Orange Bowl, Virginia Tech agreed to purchase 17,500 tickets at $125 per seat.  According to university documents, they were only able to sell 3,342, thus costing the university $1.77 Million.
     Now, if that didn't spark your attention, maybe this will.  In 2010, Ohio State earned $18.5 Million for making the Rose Bowl.  That money was then divided into 12 shares, one for each team in the Big Ten and one for the league office.  That left the Buckeyes with a little over $2 Million.  After travel costs, unsold tickets, and transportation and lodging for players, coaches, cheerleaders, and the band, the Buckeyes left Pasadena with a Rose Bowl victory and a $79,597 pay cut.
     All that money lost by the university is gained by BCS officials.  The problem with a playoff, from their eyes, is that a minor dissolving of the current system would release some of the power held by some of the BCS commissioners.  I'm not proposing a complete depletion of the BCS, but any change would cost those figureheads money and power; something they are not willing to relinquish.
     My solution...a 12-team playoff.  This is how it works.  Keep the same regular season, the same polling, and the same computer ranking system.  The top 12 teams make the playoff, thus maintaining the importance of regular season wins.  The top 4 teams receive a first-round bye and the other eight play.  You can even keep the bowl system.  Simply designate each quarterfinal and semifinal matchup a different major bowl.  The minor bowls can still exist as a type of consolation for those teams who don't make the playoff bracket.  The money still comes.  The excitement is heightened.  Think about it; NCAA March Madness...in football!
     In 2005, while speaking to Congress, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said that "an NFL-style football playoff would generate three or four times more than the current system does."  If that's true, we're talking $700 Million to $800 Million annually to be distributed among the I-A conferences.  It all makes sense; except to those BCS figureheads.  Get them to relinquish power, and the college football experience would explode.  Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that that will happen any time soon.  If it does, football fans would be in virtual fan euphoria.  But for now, we are forced to settle with an imperfect and inexact measurement of a champion.