The Financial Side of the Bowl System

Sid · Dec 15, 2017

Some pretty eye-popping statistics:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2017/12/14/college-football-bowl-game-revenue-sharing/952646001/

-The College Football Playoff Administration, LLC, owns the Playoff, which started in 2014. It is a for-profit entity. It is a consortium of the 10 major college football conferences and Notre Dame.

-The Power Five leagues received more than 75% of the $441 million paid out to all conferences and teams by the Playoff last season. The Pac-12, Big Ten, Southeastern, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences each got around $60 million-$70 million from the Playoff.

-The Big Ten had $123 million in bowl revenues last season vs. just $22 million in expenses. The Pac-12 had $116 million in bowl revenues vs. only about $10 million in expenses. Those huge "profits" were by far more than any other league's last season. And that's largely because of the Rose Bowl, where Southern California beat Penn State last January, 52-49. Even though that Rose Bowl was not part of the Playoff, those two leagues have a huge contract with the Rose Bowl, which in turn has a huge contract with ESPN (paying about $80 million per year through 2026). These two leagues split about $73 million from the Rose Bowl, plus got about $70 million each in Playoff shares, in addition to other bowl game revenue.

-Notre Dame finished 4-8 last season and didn’t go to a bowl game. The Playoff still paid Notre Dame $2.9 million as part of its revenue-sharing plan. A year earlier, Notre Dame lost in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State and got $8.7 million from the Playoff. Notre Dame’s big national brand gave it leverage with the Playoff in negotiations for revenue sharing. By comparison, other independent teams got $310,469 from the Playoff, including UMass, which finished 2-10, and Army, which finished 8-5 and beat North Texas in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Click to expand...

Scott88 · Dec 15, 2017

ESPN won't be able to meet that obligation for long.
Cord cutters and the network's liberal politics are dropping their revenues like a stone.

IrishCorey · Dec 16, 2017

The above is what's standing in the way of an 8 team playoff. What Scott said is what may wind up making it more likely to happen in time.

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The Financial Side of the Bowl System

Sid Well-Known Member

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The Financial Side of the Bowl System

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