June 27, 2012

College football realizes it's been missing out on shaking down cities for championship game money

The secret cabal that controls college football (officially the B.C.S. Presidential Oversight Committee, but "secret cabal" sounds more exciting) has finally approved a four-game four-team playoff system for the NCAA football championship, with two semifinal bowl games leading to a championship game that will shift cities each year. And some of the stated reasoning for this is, shall we say, a bit familiar:

The championship game will be held at a neutral site, and cities will have the opportunity to bid to host the event. The game will be played on the first Monday in January, unless it falls on Jan. 1.

"It will be much like the Super Bowl," said Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner. "You'll be dealing with civic communities, and I think it'll be a national process and people have to be very energetic about it. I think it's going to be great for the sport."

Translation: Wait, the NFL gets cities to fight with each other for the right to spend millions of dollars on hosting the Super Bowl — how can we get in on that game? The new tiered playoff structure may or may not end up fairer than the old BCS system, but if by "great for the sport" Delany means "great for college football's revenues," then it's a fair bet he'll be proved right.