Mavs owner Cuban pursuing plan to implement college football playoff system

Because if you go outside the system, then the decision makers are different people.

If you try to replace the BCS, you have to get the conference commissioners who created the BCS - and have a vest interest in it's success - on board. If you go around the system, you need to get individual schools on board. If you can get enough individual schools to pick the Cuban system over bowl games, then you can force the BCS into trying to sustain crappier bowls or join the party.

Right now, individual schools have no alternative but to go along with the system that is given to them. Cuban is trying to create that alternative. It's a power play, plain and simple.

 

So, you think Mark Cuban is going to get individual schools to secede from their conferences and become independent so they can play in his splintered college football league?

 

Schools don't have to secede or ditch their conferences at all. They can choose to decline bowl invites now. There's just no reason to because there's nowhere else to go (though Notre Dame did last year, I believe; and Texas was going to let its players vote if they got invited at 5-7 this year).

If Cuban gives them a bunch of money to go play in his playoffs, they have that alternative.

 

So you think conferences would be fine with some of their teams opting for one championship league and others opting for another championship league? That is a huge difference between a 5-7 Texas team turning down an invitation to the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl. This would absolutely destroy conferences and there is no way they would let it happen.

Take, for example, television rights. Conferences sign exclusive deals with certain networks. The television networks and conferences are not going to let their teams opt out of a certain contract in order to go play for Cuban's championship.

 

I'm not sure - but this is the Cuban model. If Texas says they are playing in Cuban's playoffs, what do you think Dan Beebe is going to do? As far as I know, there's nothing in Texas' contract (or any of the conference contracts) to prevent that.

Like I said, there are all sorts of challenges to it - but it's an entirely issue than the BCS trying to kill a playoff system. If you look at the original article, Cuban's model is to talk to the individual schools rather than the conferences.

Conferences sign contracts with TV networks for regular season games only - not bowl games. This would have no effect on the conference TV contracts.

 

The BCS has a television deal with ESPN. The BCS is made up of its member schools, which includes all 11 FBS conferences and Notre Dame. The conference champions are contractually tied to play in the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and BCS championship games. Additionally, all conferences have contractual agreements with certain bowl games to make their teams available to a certain bowl game. Those bowl games have television contracts, which are primarily with ESPN. How do the conferences not have a television deal with ESPN to air their post season championship?

 

ESPN would almost definitively be involved in televising a playoff too. They have, on multiple occasions, espressed an interest in a college football playoff system. Somethings tells me they wouldn't mind this one bit. And not only that, but they'd probably be a primary partner with Cuban in a venture like this.

You get 20 of the big schools (3 or 4 per conference) on board with the idea and you'll quickly see the rest of the contracts renegotiated as needed. Unlike conference contracts which can range up to 5-10 years, these get renegotiated every few years anyway (or in the case of smaller bowl games, annually in many cases) so that's not a big issue. There just has to be an alternative in place - as long as the BCS people are exclusively in charge, there's no alternative.

The real question is whether Cuban can make the money work for enough schools and ESPN to put it all together. Or if he can make it enough of a threat to get the BCS to make changes on their own.

 

Can he also buy the Astros while he's at it?