By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College
When the NCAA’s College Football Playoff System denied an undefeated conference champion who had defeated the Heisman Trophy winner and took down two SEC teams, a few years ago we were told that an expansion of the system to 12 teams would solve all problems and make everything better. Evidence shows that it may not have done that.
Few things, except for perhaps Olympic Figure Skating judging, can be more subjective than the men’s college football process for selecting teams to play for the National Championship. Nobody can ever explain it. A few apologists revel in the opaqueness of the whole thing. In fact, many in college football claim that it’s all about the ratings.
If so, the college football playoff system has not really succeeded.
“The second installment of the 12-team College Football Playoff brought more strong TV ratings for ESPN and ABC,” wrote Yahoo Sports. “All told, the first round averaged 9.9 million viewers across ESPN, ABC, TNT and truTV.”
While some games like Alabama-Oklahoma and Miami-Texas A&M generated some interest, the other games fell off dramatically, leading to questions about whether Tulane University and James Madison University should have been there in the first place. Both drew small shares, even against better known opponents, like Mississippi and Oregon. In fact, Front Office Sports showed that this reflected a seven percent decline over the previous year’s extended month-long playoff system.
And as Newsweek reported, the NFL destroyed the NCAA in head-to-head matchups in the evening. “On Saturday, college football and the NFL went head-to-head on broadcast with two games each, and the viewership results, like many of the CFP games, were blowouts by the final whistle. In the opening contest, 15.46 million people watched the Eagles take hold of the NFC East crown against divisional rival Washington, a game that was close until it wasn’t.
For the CFP, 6.2 million watched as Ole Miss beat down the Tulane Green Wave for the second time this season in a laugher that felt over following the first quick touchdown drive of the Rebels. At night, it was more of the same: a whopping 21.34 million watched the Bears take down the Packers in one of the more entertaining regular-season games of the year. Caleb Williams and company came back in the final minutes, aided by an onside kick, to push the game into overtime before throwing a deep shot into the endzone for a dramatic walk-off victory.”
This doesn’t mean people don’t like college football in general. The Pop-Tarts Bowl between BYU and Georgia Tech drew an 8.7 rating, better than two of the CFP games. In fact, Bleacher Report found many of the non-playoff bowl games to be up in ratings, from the “Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl” to the TaxSlayer Bowl (the old Gator Bowl) in Jacksonville, Florida.
There are several reasons for this. While College Football has largely jettisoned rivalries, the NFL has kept these, such as the Philly-Washington and Green Bay-Chicago matchups. The NFL has methods of keeping parity via draft and free agency along with a salary cap that gives almost every team a chance.
The NCAA, on the other hand, is flooded with built-in dynasties and mismatches, instead of great matchups. Professional football decides who gets into the playoffs in a system developed before the season begins, whereas the CFP seems to make up who gets into the finals in late November, with highly subjective methods unclear to even the most loyal fans.
If professional football is a democracy, then college football is an oligarchy. Until college football becomes “more professional,” expect such trends to continue.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” a thriller novel, has been published by the Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/branded).
