Is College Football Playoff the Payoff of Major Study? : NCAA: The future of the game at its highest level is at stake when Special Committee meets in Kansas City.

The NCAA is set for a couple of big days at an airport hotel here today and Friday. The somberly titled Special Committee to Study a Division I-A Football Championship is convening and, if all goes as planned, will say yea or nay to putting a final proposal on paper.

Not much is at stake--only the bowl system, the poll system and the economic future of the game. The entire postseason landscape could change, depending partly on what the 24-person committee, chaired by UCLA Chancellor Charles Young, decides.

If the committee gives a thumbs up--Young said it would take “at least” a majority vote to do so--proposed legislation would be presented in time for the NCAA convention in January. With passage, a playoff system could be in place by 1997.

But first things first. Nothing happens without approval from the Special Committee, and even the members remain unsure what it will do.

“It could be a recommendation to do nothing, something like, ‘This is the state of the economy and it’s survivable,’ ” said Chris Plonsky, associate athletic director at Texas. “Or we could come out with something different.”

Different means playoff, although the committee hasn’t specified which of the five postseason options it prefers. The possibilities include a two-team, one-game national championship playoff; a four-team, three-game tournament; an eight-team, seven-game format, which is the choice of the network television executives and the one used as an example in the four-pound NCAA research report given to committee members; a 12-team, 11-game setup or a 16-team, 15-game tournament.

As the vote draws near, the back-room intrigue increases. There are fundamental issues at work, the most notable: Does a playoff compromise the university presidents’ much-ballyhooed educational reform movement?

Or, said Young: “Is this another example of money-grubbing universities chasing the buck? Is this further exploitation of student-athletes?”

On another level is the economic future of the sport. Can Division I-A football, and the other athletic programs it often supports, prosper without a postseason tournament?

Heavy stuff, the kind that has produced a fascinating array of pre-committee vote lobbying, counterplans, veiled threats and predictions of doom, subtle and not-so subtle politicking.

All to determine who’s No. 1.

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Though it wouldn’t dare say so, the NCAA would like a playoff, or at the very least, a way to oversee and control the postseason matchups and the revenue they generate.

At the moment, most of that power belongs to the bowls and the networks. By comparison, the NCAA-run basketball tournament earned the organization a $1-billion contract from CBS.

Dick Schultz, the former NCAA executive director, first suggested that a playoff deserved long and careful consideration. Schultz’s replacement, Cedric Dempsey, has been no less enthusiastic, and he has enlisted the efforts of such heavyweights as Tom Jernstedt, the NCAA’s chief operating officer; John Sandbrook, associate dean of UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management; Dave Cawood, assistant executive director for NCAA marketing and broadcast services; Donnie Duncan, Oklahoma athletic director and chair of the NCAA Special Events Committee, and UCLA’s Young.

Much to the amazement of its critics, a special committee was formed, a research report was commissioned and, with it, a controversy grew up.

“Before this committee was put together, I didn’t think there was really much support for a playoff,” said Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese, whose allegiance is tied to the bowls.

And now?

“If the NCAA and others have expressed an interest, we’re not opposed to looking at it,” Tranghese said.

This isn’t exactly a vote of confidence, but it’s a start. The NCAA has slowly, expertly built its case for moving the playoff idea to the convention floor. Its Special Committee is diverse, opinionated and respected. If anything, there might be more self-professed playoff skeptics than playoff supporters on the panel.

Kentucky Coach Bill Curry has denounced the idea. So has Brigham Young Coach LaVell Edwards. Notre Dame Athletic Director Dick Rosenthal, a non-voting member of the committee, has said his school has grave doubts. The same goes for Gene Corrigan, Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner. And they weren’t alone.

But that was before the first set of meetings in early May at Indian Wells. There, each committee member was presented a 350-page copy of the NCAA research report. In stunning detail, it outlined every facet of a playoff, including the 20-year history of January weather conditions.

“It’s a tome,” Plonsky said. “It was really impressive, not just in terms of sheer volume, but in terms of research. I don’t think there was a committee member who didn’t have his eyes opened.”

The NCAA, knowing a research triumph when it sees one, also sent copies to major newspapers. The report included:

--The eight-team playoff format would generate at least $101 million in net revenue, about $63 million more than the bowls.

--Such a playoff would create optimum fan and network television interest and revenue.

--Currently, 102 of the 106 Division I-A schools complete exams by the end of the second week of December. Also, 68 of those 106 schools (64%) begin winter or spring terms before Jan. 17.

This is important for two reasons: If an eight-team, seven-game playoff were adopted, all exams would be completed by the start of the first Dec. 31 quarterfinal game. However, there is a good chance the winter or spring terms for some of the eight playoff teams, perhaps even all of them, will have begun as the tournament continues toward a Jan. 19, 1997, conclusion.

--The Rose Bowl would get a quarterfinal game, with the three remaining quarterfinal games rotated among the Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta and Citrus bowls. The remaining two bowls would get the semifinal games. The inaugural championship game probably would be played at the Rose Bowl.

--The pre-Dec. 31 bowls, now 13, could go about their business.

It looks good on paper, enough so that Young isn’t shy about offering his appraisal.

“I think it’s fair to say that I have now seen that it would be feasible to do (a playoff) that would not have any substantial negative impact of the kind I thought it might have,” Young said.

And this from Plonsky, who isn’t saying how she will vote: “I think there’s an environment out there right now, because of the precedents being set, which has created a more open-minded approach to a playoff.”

Translation: Don’t be surprised if the Special Committee, thanks to nudges from Young, recommends a playoff proposal for the January NCAA convention.

Said a high-ranking administrator with firsthand knowledge of the playoff process: “I think between Chuck’s clout and just the way the NCAA can politic it--yeah, I think they have enough to get it in front of the convention. I think it’s a very, very different situation whether or not the membership will vote for it.”

The official will get no argument from Young, who said that if a vote of campus CEOs were taken today, it would probably be negative.”

By January, if the proposal reached the convention, Young said there could be a different result.

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When the Special Committee was formed, it was asked to address three central issues:

--What was the state of college football, or more precisely, the business of college football?

--Should there be an actual system to determine a Division I-A football national champion?

--How much new money can be made from a playoff?

According to the research report, attendance and TV viewership has flattened. And although gross receipts from the bowls have increased 33%, from $66 million in 1988-89 to $88 million in 1993-94, compare those figures to the NCAA basketball tournament, whose gross receipts have jumped from $70 million to $153 million during the same period.

Another telling figure: TV rights fees. The bowls earned $30 million from TV in 1988-89, $36 million last season; the NCAA basketball tournament $57 million in 1988-89, $137 million in 1993-94.

The research report makes no predictions of similar success if the NCAA were to adopt a football playoff, but the suggestions are clear.

“I think the facts demonstrate that there are reasons for (a playoff) that are very substantial,” Young said.

A high-ranking administrator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a playoff probably would create more problems than it would solve. In his view, a playoff would compromise academic integrity, put more pressure on coaches to extend the season beyond acceptable standards and kill the bowl system.

“I am very concerned that it is completely contrary to the spirit of (academic) reform,” the administrator said. “And I would be surprised if the school presidents don’t feel the same way, since they have been the leaders of that reform.”

The same official said he had been told by at least one network television executive that some of the research report figures concerning potential ratings and advertising revenue were inflated, in some cases by as much as 40%-50%.

Young called those assumptions “reasonable” and “probably a little low (rather) than a little high.”

Even if the projections are correct, there are other questions:

--How would the teams for the playoff be selected?

--How would the playoff revenue be distributed--to only the 106 Division I-A football schools or to all the NCAA member institutions, about 800.

--How will the NCAA include the student-athlete in the financial pie? Direct player stipends? Allowances? Emergency funds? Perks? And what will the gender equity proponents have to say about that?

How can the NCAA be sure fans will follow their teams from one quarterfinal site to a semifinal site and then to the championship site?

“Good luck moving them hither and yon,” an official said. “This is not the NCAA basketball tournament.”

Advocates of a playoff insist that fan support is the least of their worries. They envision a football tournament equaling or surpassing the popularity of the Final Four.

The Big East’s Tranghese said those advocates are missing the point.

“Joe Fan will want a playoff, period,” he said. “But I don’t think Joe Fan is the main ingredient here. The players and institutions are. We’re not a professional football league.”

Tranghese is heading a new bowl coalition plan in which as many as three marquee games would be moved to prime time. Whenever possible, No. 1 would play No. 2--that is, if No. 1 or 2 aren’t in the non-coalition Rose Bowl.

The plan has its kinks, but it also has its advantages. For starters, it doesn’t stretch into mid-January or render the other bowls virtually useless. The coalition proposal probably wouldn’t generate the same kind of money produced by a playoff, but it would increase payouts, although the exact figures are sketchy.

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There is no guarantee that the Special Committee will reach a decision by Friday night. There could be another meeting, more teleconference calls, more debate. But none of that will change what Kentucky’s Curry calls, “a crucial juncture,” in the future of college football.

Sit still and there is the risk of further stagnation. Go boldly forward and there is the risk of undermining the original mission, which supposedly is to keep the student in student-athlete.

“When it comes down to push-and-shove time, the decision is not whether there is money to be made, to pay for our problems,” said Texas’ Plonsky. “This needs to be the best thing for college football.”