Zemek: The Playoff Is A 12-Year Deal?!

Part of the big story out of the new playoff system - it'll be a 12-year deal

The complete plan for college football's postseason has not yet been formulated. Questions remain unanswered and issues remain unaddressed. They'll be talked about when college football finally makes up its mind and fills in the blanks. For now, the formal arrival of a seeded four-team playoff has given college football a curious mixture of benefits and setbacks. Here's what's worth talking about in the absence of additional details on matters such as revenue distribution and playoff access for the Boise States of the world:

The biggest news story in today's release is that the reality of a playoff is being birthed within the confines of a 12-year deal. A 12-year deal? Without firm figures on revenue sharing and access for the non-power conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision? In addition to making the Big East Conference (and its new or soon-to-arrive members) worried sick, the scope of this deal is distressing – and highly questionable – because so much is going to change in college sports over the next three to six years. This is the reality of the athletic-industrial complex, magnified when the Big 12-SEC "Champions Bowl" was created several weeks ago.

Do you remember the conversations that accelerated after the Champions Bowl? Because the Big 12 and SEC own the newly-created event, the promise of additional revenue flowing to (and through) the conferences exerted long-term pressure on independents and any teams outside the five power conferences. (Remember, there are only five power conferences now, not six, with the Big East in decline.) Notre Dame and BYU had to react to the creation of the Champions Bowl with alarm, especially in BYU's case. Notre Dame, as is felt by most observers of the college sports scene, can stand pat for a few years, but the accumulation of substantial conference-based money will likely make it very difficult for Notre Dame to remain independent through the rest of this decade. BYU – without the television clout of Notre Dame – might not be able to wait as long.

Since the national championship game under this new playoff system will also be owned and operated by the conferences, it's even more important for independents and those outside the power conferences to make sure they have a foot in the door. This will very likely mean that more conference realignment will occur in the next three to six years. It would have made so much more sense for college football to make this playoff plan a six-year package, giving the sport a chance to work with (and within) a noticeably different environment come 2020.

The 12-year deal was, according to commentators such as Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a product of the desire to head off bracket creep, the tendency of playoffs to increase in size. That's all well and good on its own small level, but bracket creep should not be the number one (or two) reason for creating a college football playoff.

Accommodating schools and conferences – goals that touch on the holistic wellness of the college sports industry and other big-picture items worthy of true leaders – should be the focus for the college presidents of America. A 12-year deal is not a product of an adult decision or a priority system belonging to mature individuals. This plan's unnecessary and unproductive duration reeks of narrow self-interest as opposed to an emphasis on the health of the sport. That's been a common thread running through the history of college football.

There is a positive aspect to college football's plan, however: The selection committee will choose not just the four playoff teams, but the matchups for the six bundled bowl games that will be part of this larger plan. This is fabulous news for fans of the sport, because it means that top-tier bowl matchups will finally exist with fewer conference-forced constraints. The tie-ins and lock-ins that existed in the BCS era – and to a lesser extent in the pre-Bowl Alliance era – suffocated the sport by limiting the options of bowl committees. This new model – conference ownership of the Champions Bowl and the national title game, plus open selection of most of the six premier postseason games – will enable the best teams to play each other. A 2007-like situation – in which USC was unable to play Georgia in the Rose Bowl and Oklahoma was unable to face Virginia Tech in the Orange – will no longer unfold.

The insistence on playing Monday night championship games is still quite stupid, but that's a minor detail. Insisting on a December 31 date for one of the semifinal games is also stupid. (What if December 31 is a Wednesday and January 2 is a Friday? Play on Friday, right?) Yet, that's also tolerable in a larger context. Today's announcement provides some good news for college football fans, but the major takeaway from this story is that 12 years is far too long for this deal. The sport will be very different six years from now, and college football could be stuck with some impossible-to-resolve problems.