Earlier this week the BCS commissioners and the Presidential Oversight Committee agreed on a rotation for the BCS Bowl Games, and the teams that would be able to gain access to the bowl games. Initially it was thought that they would add a seventh BCS game, now referred to as “Access Bowls,” but they decided against it and settled on six games.
The National Semifinal games will rotate through the six different bowl game sites, which sets up two semifinal games, and four other bowl games. The National Title game will be bid out between the six bowl game sites, as it would have been when there were only five BCS bowl games.
The six games include three “contract bowls” and three “host bowls.” The contract bowls are: the Rose Bowl (Pac-12 vs. Big Ten), the Sugar Bowl (SEC vs. Big 12) and the Orange Bowl (ACC vs. Big Ten or SEC or Notre Dame). The three host bowls have not been announced yet, but ESPN says that the Fiesta Bowl, the Cotton Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Bowl are the leading candidates. All of which would make sense, since they all play at major stadiums. The Cotton Bowl is now at Jerry World in Dallas, and they will get a lot of love in the future.
(Epic SNL Skit here that YouTube won’t let me embed)
I’m going to digress for a second and say that this is why I absolute despise Notre Dame. They are in the ACC for other sports and will play five games a year against ACC schools, but they get their own deal with a BCS Bowl game so long as they qualify? It’s absolute garbage that they continually get to play by their own set of rules when they aren’t even close to as dominant as they were 30 years ago.
Moving on. What happens when one of the contract bowls are hosting a semi-final you ask? This is what ESPN says will happen, “While a Big Ten or SEC team could be selected to the Orange Bowl, the commissioners have agreed that when the Rose and/or Sugar bowls are hosting the semifinals, the Big Ten or SEC champion will not be placed in the Orange Bowl. Instead, it would have to be placed in one of the three other access bowls to increase the worth of that bowl.”
It’s an interesting dynamic, and it should also be noted that another automatic bid has been contracted out, so that 7 of the 12 spots will be contracted out. The 7th spot was given to what is being called the “group of five.” Unfortunately for everyone the group of five consists of the Big East, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and MAC conferences. How will this work? The highest rated conference champion from these five conferences will play in the BCS. How will the other at-large selections be determined? They’re going to create a committee that will select the teams based on a certain criteria, which has yet to be determined.
The revenue distribution is going to be absolutely massive. The media rights for the Bowl series is going to net a contract of about 500 Million over 12 years. It hasn’t been determined officially what exactly the revenue split is going to be, but ESPN has this to say,
“The SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 will receive the biggest chunk of the new revenue. Each of those leagues will receive the same base amount of revenue, sources said. The remaining “Group of Five” leagues — Big East, C-USA, MWC, Sun Belt and MAC — will split a smaller amount among themselves. How the “Group of Five” will divide that revenue is still to be decided.
Each conference also will receive additional revenue for the number of teams it places in the national semifinals and six major bowl games. There also will be an academic component, in which 10 percent of each conference’s revenue is set aside for academics.
Schools within each conference that meet the NCAA’s APR minimum requirements will divide that revenue within its conference.”
Basically what you need to know from this, is that it is pretty much the same old BCS, with the addition of another bowl game and the creation a four team playoff. The same powerhouse teams in the same power house conferences will continue to make all of the money; which is the way it should be. Those teams are the most marketable and bring the most to the table. Nobody wants to see Louisiana Tech take on Northern Illinois in any bowl game, let alone in a BCS game.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of the committee giving the group of five conferences a BCS bid, but I guess they had to give them something to work with. In the grand scheme of things it won’t be a huge deal, it just means that one team is going to get served on a platter to some major conference team.
I still wish that Notre Dame wouldn’t get their own rules and that their bid would count as an ACC bid, or just let them get their own at-large bid through qualifying in the standings. I mean honestly, why should they get a separate contract with a BCS bowl game? Essentially if they lose two games or less per year they will be absolutely guaranteed to be in the Rose Bowl every year and thats garbage. Personally if I’m a Notre Dame fan, I’d be upset that I’m tied to one specific bowl game against the ACC. They’d probably be better off being able to qualify for any of the games or at-large spots and face different opponents.
H/T: ESPN.com
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