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Selling (the) Sunset: How Rose Bowl acquiescing to BCS carved path to expanded College Football Playoff


The state of college football has been a long time coming. At least 30 years worth. Dennis Dodd reports.

Arguably, you are correct, but the method of determining a champion has damaged the sport noticeably for a while now.  Used to be that fans of many teams had something to be excited about in the post-season, as finishing ranked, top 10, top 5, was something fans celebrated.  The more definitive the NC claimed to be, the more the sport focused on it to the exclusion of everything else, and the more the public followed suit.  And caring less about being anything other than NCs became more normal.  The BCS started it, the playoffs exacerbated it, expanding the playoffs is going to put the nail in the coffin for the post-season outside of the playoffs. 

I think those things can still be celebrated. If you (or anyone else) isn’t celebrating those things then I think that falls on you first and foremost.  You are letting external forces affect how you view and feel about your favorite team.

WVU has a shot at 9 wins and an outside shot at a top 25 finish.  I’m into it  to see if they can hit those marks.  I get that it isn’t on the radar nationally and no one outside of WVU fans care, but whatever, I care. 

I’ve had this discussion before but I haven’t necessarily bought this argument that the playoffs have stripped the bowls of importance.  I was always keenly aware of what bowl(s) had an impact on the MNC race.  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the other bowls not involved.

I think the bowls feel  less important because of the sheer number of them and players skipping them or transferring before they are played.  And I don’t think the player movement is all that affected by the playoff format.

I think those things can still be celebrated. If you (or anyone else) isn’t celebrating those things then I think that falls on you first and foremost.  You are letting external forces affect how you view and feel about your favorite team.

I think you're right to an extent, but I also think it's silly to dismiss the broader stream of consciousness within the sport and all the external messages that constantly bombard a person that it's all about the playoffs and NCs, and say that it doesn't have an effect on a person.  I'm guessing the psychological and sociological research into such things backs that up. 

The actual excitement surrounding college football rises up from the student body

If you have not lost the following of the students football will remain viable no matter what sports folks talk about

The time to worry is when the following of the student body is lost

I mean look at the student sections in bad weather games, creampuff games, noon games, etc...

It looks good when you have an 8:00 PM ranked matchup, and maybe Texas is fine, but looking around the Big Ten, even the students are event fans.  Look at the student sections for even UM, OSU and PSU games.  Granted those are the noon BTN games, so nobody notices.

I will say that while the on-field product at the New Brickhouse was disappointing, the students have shown up in force for every game over the last two years. It's impressive. 

It helps that the Thursday night opener is a mandatory attendance event for all incoming freshmen. 

Attendance in general, and specifically student attendance, has been declining for two decades.

They schools HAVE lost the following of the students.  Current students don't care about sports nearly as much as previous generations, and it's showing up in the attendance numbers.

And younger fans are not being made, because families have been completely priced out of the market.  I'm not exactly poor but even I've taken my kids to only one Texas game in the past 5 years.  I look at the expense, and decide my entertainment dollars can go a lot further if spent on other things.

By contrast, my parents took me to several UT games every year, including the TX-OU game several times.  I was born and raised a fan.  That is no longer happening.

Oh, so it's not just us, then?  (Tongue-in-cheek.  I pretty well know it's not just us.  Just that we've been bitching for the last 15 years about the average LSU fan being priced out of game day.)

Dad used to take me to the Ole Miss games, and once he took me to Ole Miss for the LSU game.  Even though we lived in BR at the time, I don't think it would be the same today.  It's more expensive as you point out, and at LSU at least, while traffic was never exactly good for game days, these days it flat sucks with a capital WTF???  I can't picture him putting up with that when he was usually pretty happy to listen on the radio.  

I was seeing a doctor in Beaumont last week and noticed his LSU edition Nike shoes and asked about them.  He said he was from BR and went to U-High on campus and did his undergrad at LSU.  Said he and several family members have been season ticket holders for 37 years.  I asked him did he make it to many games and his face fell and he said no, it's kind of far and the traffic is such a hassle, and it's so easy to watch on his big screen from his comfy couch, and he hadn't been to a game in quite a few years.  I haven't thought through the economics enough to know if they have a point, but I've seen LSU fans on the interwebz complaining for a while now about wealthier ticket buyers who get season tickets they don't even use and somehow this drives the price on everything else up. 

How about tOSU vs Wisconsin and Bama vs M.Tenn ST.?