AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 15
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
College football is healthy. Why change?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m going give you a heads up here. The commissioners of the 11 Division I-A conferences will gather in South Florida at the end of the month for their annual discussion of the BCS. You’ll be reading a lot more about the BCS meetings and what they could mean as we get closer to the date.
But during the weekend I saw some items that pointed out once again that college football, for all of its angst in the postseason, has never been healthier or more popular. Consider:
**—A total of 37,146,661 fans watched the 119 Division I-A teams play football in 2007, which is an all-time record. And it comes at a time when more games are on television than ever. And yes, the SEC led all conferences in attendance with 6,687,342 fans.
**—Over 78,000 fans showed up for last Saturday’s Alabama spring game after the Crimson Tide went 7-6 last season.
**—ESPN took several hours of its live programming on Saturday and spent it at the Florida spring game. It gave the Game Day boys a chance to give fans an early preview of the 2008 season. The TV folks don’t put stuff on just to be nice. There is a demand for this kind of programming and information about college football in the off-season.
**—Finally, here is my favorite tidbit and it proves again why college football is the best game in the world. Saturday’s Nebraska spring game, the first under new coach Bo Pelini, is sold out. No surprise there. But the demand to get into this game is so high that, according to media reports, $10 tickets are being sold through brokers for $95.
Think about that. There are people willing to play $95 to see a college football SCRIMMAGE. Is there an equivalent to that in any other sport?
So here is the question to ponder this morning. If you were in charge of college football, would you do ANYTHING that might harm the regular season, which is the best of any organized sport?
Many schools with full football stadiums during the regular season are having a tough time keeping their athletics budgets in the black. They don’t want to see any change that would de-emphasize a single game.
Or do you believe that no matter how you might change the post-season (playoff, etc.) the regular season would be just fine because the game is so popular?
That will be one of many arguments against change when the BCS meets.
Is it a good argument?
