Bowls, Bcs, or Bust?: a Retrospective and Comparative Study of College Football's Bowl / Bowl Championship Series Revenue Distributions, Versus a Proposed 16-team Playoff's

The Football Bowl Subdivision or FBS (formerly Division I-A) is the only American NCAA team sport to determine its champion without a playoff. Despite strong sentiment in favor of a playoff over the current Bowl Championship Series system, and admittance from top-level NCAA and FBS administrators that a playoff would increase overall revenues, the BCS/bowl system remains favored by the majority of university presidents and conference commissioners. This study examined one possible reason there is not a playoff. To achieve this, the revenues of the current system were compared to conservative revenue estimates of a proposed playoff, likely administered by the NCAA, similar to the Division I Basketball Championship. The goal was to determine how the current bowl relationships and contracts factor into university president's resistance to implement a playoff. The findings showed that while more overall revenue could be earned by a playoff, institutions could have less available unrestricted revenue to use at their discretion.