Bull crap. Everyone has an opinion. He's paid to express his. It's not mine. They said the same thing about major league baseball years ago, but the sport continues to thrive with attendance at near record levels every year. If college football programs are seeing declining attendance, it's their own fault for scheduling 2-3 patsies each season. In doing so, they insult the intelligence of their fans, who don't want to waste the travel time and expense to watch those games when they can see more competitive games in the comfort of their homes.
I thought it was going to be great to live in Florida and finally get to use the majority of my UF season tickets in Gainesville that I have owned since 1990. Of course when I first bought them I lived in Detroit and most of the cost was borne by my Dad and brother-n-law. For the past few years they have both been out and the entire expense is mine but no matter because I live in Florida now and can use them more readily.... or so I thought. Like Sid says those 2 or 3 lousy games in 95 degree noon heat are not appealing in the least.... many have sat in the drawer..... and a 2.5 to 3 hour one way trip is pretty tough when you are returning after a long day/night at the Swamp so I have only attended a couple of games each year I have been here and sell the rest if I can. Each year meanwhile including this one the prices go up for the same seats. After 23 years of season ticket ownership I am very very close to letting them go.
I don't know if it's peaked or not, but there is a problem with those early season games vs nobodies, at Texas where the stadium is sold out besides the students not showing up in droves, there are more than a few no shows. I haven't seen this at ND games but then at ND games because of the way the seats are stripped for 1930 butts you could have 10K of no shows and the stadium would still look packed. This whole can't come because I can't facebook, tweet, instagram crap just blows my mind. But in response stadiums all over the country are beefing up their wifi access in the stadium. I remember reading that the new San Francisco 49ner's stadium will have the most modern wifi setup ever and will be able to easily handle all the crowd being on their smartphones at the same time. I have heard that as part of the ND Stadium renovations that wifi will be beafed up considerably.
Like all things living, it will continue on and morph as it moves forward. It's really hard to take something like this and compare it to a static source such as oil. With oil, you're dealing with the finite. Something like football will continue to grow, and change. There will be times of expansion and periods of contraction, but the game will continue to move forward. I realize fully that I am in the minority on this issue, but those in my camp have been quite vocal on this issue and just because we're the minority doesn't mean that we're wrong. I believe the BCS era was actually bad for the sport and for the universities. At the same time, it depends on how you want to value 'bad.' In terms of cash profit and media attention, the BCS era was an overwhelming success. At the same time, what was the cost to ethics, standards and process to the game? I'm not sure you can truly quantify that at this time, but the early indicators are not very good. The game needs to be about the game, the kids and the schools in that order. For the past 16 years, we've focused on the money and the schools. The game has moved on. The kids have moved on. The cash grab source won't dry up, but it will most certainly change. As for his mention of uncertainty, he can kiss my ass. No flag waver of the BCS system can ever, while maintaining a modicum of credibility, fall back on the battle cry of protecting the tradition of the historical institutions of college football such as the Rose Bowl. These people didn't give a rat's ass about the Rose Bowl when it refused to join the BCS. They mocked it. They didn't give a rat's history when the traditions were shattered in order to make the Rose Bowl comply with the BCS standard. Now, those things are forever changed as a result of the BCS so you can't go back claiming you are trying to protect the sanctity of the Rose Bowl when it's you who defiled it long ago. The only things that are certain in this world is that there is a past, and not everyone is promised a future. There will be a future, but that is a time to be determined by those living in it. You can't throttle the future in order to protect people and institutions that are now dead in the ground. The game will be fine. People will be fine. The past is the past. End of story.
I do agree the sanctity and tradition of every major bowl was compromised when first the bowl alliance came in to play and then the BCS became the decider. ( Decider.... don't you guys love that word lol ) In any event....I also feel that if the end objective was to get a more true champion.... have championships decided by games between the two best teams available .... then the BCS was a step in the right direction and was much better than The Big 12 Champion claiming after winning the Orange Bowl that it was a better champion than a similarly unbeaten Big 10 champion who won the Rose Bowl. You can't sit there and tell me that it was better to have a split championship than to have Michigan and Nebraska play each other in one of the Bowls for all the marbles and decide the damn thing. I don't know a fan of either school in which they feel justified in claiming that national title without mentioning the other school as well. That sucked..... and it sucked more than what the BCS offered us and it would have been corrected by the BCS format.... especially the format of the past several years which was tweaked up and refined considerably.
********. It was a cash grab disguised as a 'process' to select a NC. Sure, we didn't have split NCs. That's because the system everyone was forced into signing on with made everyone who wasn't their 1 and 2 illegitimate regardless of the legitimacy of their claim to either the #1 or 2 spot. Essentially, what the BCS did was stick their tongue out and say 'because we said so.' It's elementary school logic, at best. A decrepit rouse of a cash grab is the most likely description.
It was much better before. (sarcasm alert) About 6 different teams could say they should be #1. It has been an evolution. BCS then now a 4 team playoff and next 8 teams.
Solid point KP. I just think the point should be made that the BCS era had to be ended and drug forward into 'progress' with its teeth marks still freshly in the 'tradition' of college football. We somehow tossed aside 100 years of college football history without much thought collectively. Now we're acting like we should all be beholden to something that had the lifespan of a strip mall.
I know I sound like a broken record but big time college football is the only NCAA sport without a playoff tournament. For 100 years the NC was "mythical" 8)
For 100 years the NC was "mythical"..... Yeah but at least in the past 15 the two teams "perceived" to be the mythical best couldn't dodge each other.....and were made to see just who was the better mythical champion. It was a step up. Even a playoff doesn't resolve everything.... but the 4 team playoff is another step up.
8) Except for the year that USC finished the season ranked #1 in both polls and everyone dodged them...
The early 2000s saw some serious issues with the BCS but those issues were addressed and the BCS format was a lot tighter with less blindspots after that. 2003 USC and 2004 Auburn both had reason for major beefs with the BCS system. But it was the system.... no one dodged anyone else on their own.
considering that USC had thumped Auburn in 2002 and 2003, maybe not playing them had something to do with their unbeaten season in 2004? I'm more with KP on this. It was "mythical" and until there's a playoff, they should be treated as such. There were many issues I had with the BCS, but one of them is that it claimed some air of legitimacy by using an outright disreputable and illegitimate process. Worse, the constant marketing and honking of their own horn about 'how the BCS has worked every year' is snake oil salesman-esque at best, if not an outright lie. The truth is, given the way many of those seasons played out, we had multiple teams in multiple years with an NC claim. We should have had multiple NCs. We didn't and that fractured the sport to the point where we are today with really only the playoff as the road to salvation.