[Husker] Playoff BCS

[Mike Jaixen]

Just curious, have you ever traveled to a bowl game from a significant 
distance?  (i.e. Nebraska)  It is NOT cheap, and the price only continues to 
increase.  Bowl game "packages" for the Holiday Bowl seem to be starting at 
around $1500 a person, double occupancy, for a 4 day trip.  That's an awfully 
expensive vacation, considering what you are getting.  Fans are traveling during 
high season with short notice.

More and more of the lower bowl games are actually owned and operated by ESPN.  
Why?  Because they are immensely profitable.  Teams cannot turn down the 
prestige of a bowl game, so they accept a cut-rate financial deal to play the 
game.  Most schools lose money on the deal, and ESPN gets cheap, highly rated 
programming to show.  No matter if the game only attracts a few thousand people 
to a baseball stadium.  The schools got stuck with paying for the tickets, so 
who cares?

Players like the bowls because they get $500 in goodie bag schwag, like Wii's, 
cameras, and iPods.

There are issues with a playoff system, to be sure.  But I'm convinced that an 8 
team playoff played at home sites until the national championship game would be 
better for everyone.  Oh, and if you don't make the playoff, you get to schedule 
1 game as an "NIT" type of thing.  Maybe you play it at the Beef O'Brady's 
bowl.  Or maybe you just agree to play another game in Lincoln. 


 Mike Jaixen
http://huskermike.blogspot.com
http://www.cornnation.com




________________________________
From: Rod Wellman <gobigred66 at mac.com>
To: “Husker List“ <husker at tssi.com>
Sent: Wed, December 8, 2010 9:53:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Husker] Re: husker Digest, Vol 7, Issue 485

The arguments for a playoff system drive me crazy.

Division 1 football is unique now. It has tradition. 

Division 2, 3 and NAIA are ending their seasons in their playoff system right 
now.  Is that what you want?  No bowls over the holidays? 


Super conferences where you don't play half the teams in your conference, no 
bowl games, a playoff system where you force fans to travel to distant venues 2 
or 3 or 4 weeks in a row.  Yikes.

When ALL the things (traditions) that make college football unique are lost, 
I'll cease to be a college football fan.

Saying we have to have a playoff "just because everybody else does' is also 
hypocrisy.

Rod W.
Sioux City, Ia.