December Madness?

It's long been my belief that when it comes to a true D-I college football playoff, money will talk. The only way to bring every conference commissioner, bowl organizer, and university president on board is to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a postseason tournament will make everybody richer.

To his credit, that's exactly what University of Florida president Bernie Machen is trying to do.

Before we take another leap into this maelstrom, let's agree on some terms: it really is all about the money. The counter-arguments to a college football playoff -- the potential irrelevance of regular-season games (including the possibility that a team might rest starters or otherwise put it in cruise control once a playoff berth is secure), the logistical challenges of incorporating the current bowl structure into a tournament, plus the myriad complaints about abandoning tradition, etc. -- all have merit. Go ahead and peruse Brian's College Football Resource site for a passionate and detailed argument against a playoff.

Now, once you've assembled all of those counter-arguments, ask yourself this: what's the real worry about a playoff? Not for fans, media guys, and bloggers, but for those who have the power to make it happen -- the aforementioned conference commissioners, bowl organizers, and university presidents? What are they worried about?

Money.

"Lessening the impact of regular season games" translates into "we might not sell as many tickets." Bowl organizers who lament the fact that a playoff would prevent bowl teams from spending a full week or two in their town (true) are terrified about the lost hotel nights and reduced local spending, which in turn hampers their efforts to sell local sponsorships. Concerns about a fan base traveling from playoff site to playoff site? Same thing. Tougher travel = fewer fans = less money. You can't link every complaint to dollars, only most of them. Hate to sound cynical, but this is a business.

Understand that I'm not supporting one side or the other -- yet. I'm simply reducing the argument to its most powerful driving force. Which is what Dr. Machen of UF is doing on Thursday at the Southeastern Conference's spring meetings in Destin, Florida.

As he told the Tampa Tribune, "There may be -- and you won't know this until you test it -- $100 to $200 million that's not on the table" under the current bowl/BCS format. He points to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which costs CBS $545 million per year (!) to televise, compared to the Fox Bowl Championship Series contract's annual value of $83 million (redundant full disclosure: Fox is the parent company of Sun Sports. And may I add that Rupert Murdoch is not only a handsome man, but a snappy dresser and a pretty good dancer).

In other words, Dr. Machen plans to argue that we're all gonna make a ton of dough with a playoff. Not only has this argument been offered before, there was, at one time, money "on the table," according to that same Tampa Tribune article. College football fans may dimly remember a plan from a Swiss outfit in the late '90s that called for a 16-team playoff (later reduced to 8 teams) and a payout of between $2.5 and $3 billion dollars.

It's worth noting that the Swiss company, International Sports and Leisure (ISL), once held the marketing rights to soccer's World Cup, a fairly decent tournament in its own right. However, ISL is now out of business, partially due to charges of corruption. So maybe we should take that historic "offer" with a healthy grain of salt.

Anyway, "cash on the table" did not and has not resulted in a playoff yet. Resistance is fierce, particularly from influential figures like Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, who told the Tribune, "a hundred million dollars is not going to sway us when $2 billion didn't." To add a pile of intrigue to this story, Machen has suggested that if the Big Ten and Pac-10 are so vehemently opposed to altering their historic ties with the Rose Bowl, perhaps they should sit this one out.

Machen: "My approach would be that the other conferences and schools would devise a playoff system, and we'll see if the Big Ten and the Pac-10 can stay outside of it ... With a lot more money on the table and a true playoff system, they're going to say 'Sorry, we're going to Pasadena?' We'll see."

Zoicks. How about a Steel Cage Death Match, two falls, TV time remaining?

It's important to note how the central question of the playoff debate has shifted over the last couple of years. At one point, it was "can we do it?" -- the logistics seemed overwhelming. Machen, and others, have slowly pushed this conversation in the more relevant direction -- "should we do it?"

Of course we can do it, as I've written here before. Logistics are no longer a serious hurdle. Even if you despise the various playoff models -- including the soon-to-be world-famous Rados Plan from Ft. Walton Beach's very own Tom Rados, the staunchest Florida State fan in the entire United States Air Force -- the simple addition of the BCS Championship Game last year has created the possibility of at least a "College Football Final Four." A mini-Madness, if you will.

Would that be enough to satisfy playoff proponents? Is it inclusive enough? Will access to the promised land be granted to the Boise States and Louisvilles of the world, those programs who have clearly demonstrated the ability to compete with the traditional powers on the field, but are held down by conference ties? Probably not, but the point is, it's possible.

So forget "can we?" With enough money on the table, and a guarantee that every stakeholder will get a piece of the pie, we can. Instead, ask "should we?"

I, for one, am at a crossroad.

My egalitarian nature wishes for a true "all comers" Division I football tournament. Pointing to the aforementioned programs like Boise State and Louisville (and South Florida, and Toledo, and Utah, and about a dozen others), there's a part of me that wants to see it decided on the field. I love underdogs; I love it when "traditional" powers are compelled to ride something other than reputation. As we've discussed around here many times, the gap between the haves and have-not's in D-I football has never been closer. There are a lot of good teams out there, but they're playing for a very limited number of berths in upper-tier bowls, many of which were devised when America had maybe five great college football programs (and three of them were Army, Cornell, and Yale). Maybe it's time for the postseason to catch up with the regular season. For that matter, maybe the largest, most powerful athletic programs in the NCAA -- major college football teams -- should catch up with their fellow student-athletes and actually decide a true national champion. I've written it before: the NCAA conducts national championships in more than 80 sports, male and female. Division I college football is not one of them. Doesn't that seem breathtakingly ridiculous?

Plus, despite the naysayers, I believe that a playoff could produce some hellaciously fun 3-14 or 5-12 matchups (and the possibility of a coasting team in a power conference getting upset in the first round by a scorching team from a weak conference bugs the crap out of some fans of some of those power conference teams, which, in my perverse world, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside).

But...

Saturdays in Tallahassee are a blast. Same with Gainesville, Norman, Columbus, Happy Valley, Death Valley (both of 'em), Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Madison, and dozens more college towns. If we know we're playing it off at the end of the year, do we lose that electric game day atmosphere? Is the urgency -- the buzz and hum of the pregame, the sheer terror at the prospect of an upset, the joyous bonding of 90,000 relative strangers singing a goofy fight song in victory, the very identity of college football -- removed?

Something else -- bowl games are fun, too. This January, I actually got the chance to attend a college football game live and in person, a true rarity in my business. It was the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, pitting Arkansas against Wisconsin. Tailgating and seeing friends and neighbors while hollering like an idiot about two teams that mean nothing to me -- that was quite a release for a TV guy who is locked in a studio from August through December. It was about ten times better for the thousands upon thousands of Hogs and Badgers for whom Orlando was the carrot at the end of a long season. Is there anything wrong with playing well in your conference and enjoying a working vacation someplace (hopefully) warm and inviting in January?

No, there's not. Not a damn thing. It doesn't crown a true national champion, but how much does that matter? And to whom? If we create a playoff, who are we creating it for? Fans? Players? Alumni? Or television? Money talks. What will it say?

And the final, most important question: We know we can, but should we?

I haven't decided on an answer yet. But at least we're discussing the correct question.