It's finally here! Just like everyone wanted! So, when are we going to learn that more isn't necessarily always more? Sometimes more is less, and sometimes less is more. Some people would argue that's true most of the time, not just sometimes. More games doesn't always mean better.
Take, for example, baseball. There are over 150 games played every year. How many people actually watch them? Not very many. Why? Because the Red Sox, one of the most popular teams in baseball, can get off to a 2-10 start of the season and if they hadn't gone 6-18 the last 24 games, would have made the playoffs! That's crazy! In the NFL, if you go 2-10, you're done. College football same thing; you don't even get one of the insignificant bowl games! College basketball you're pretty much done, and in the NBA you still have a chance only because they have 82 games in their season, although most teams wouldn't make the playoffs starting 2-10. But in baseball, because you still have about 140 games left, it's no big deal. You could lose your first 40 games and still have a good chance to make the playoffs!
With that being said, why should I watch the first 40, 50, 80, 120, or any of the regular season games in baseball? The reality is nobody does. This past year, preseason NFL games (the exhibition games that don't even count) got higher ratings than the world series! If people aren't even watching the championship, you think they're watching the regular season?! Of course not!
One of the major downsides of a playoff system is that it dilutes the regular season, just like in this example of baseball. Nobody cares about it because it's no longer important. We, especially as Americans, always seem to crave more. More food, more entertainment, more money, more games. More more more more more! We don't think about the effect that craving has on other things. We don't care; we just want more. And because now it's easier than ever to make money off of people's cravings, we do just that usually sending something (or someone) else limping off the field.
Take college basketball. Nobody watches the regular season of college basketball. I live right by the University of Utah. I hear radio commercials all the time clamoring for people to buy tickets because they usually DON'T sell more tickets than they sell. You have this contrast of regular season college basketball and the NCAA Tournament which has just been dubbed "March Madness." People are filling out brackets left and right for march madness, not really knowing who's gonna win because they haven't watched it all year! It's the biggest and best playoff system in American sports, which makes its regular season one of the most insignificants.
So getting back to a 4-team college football playoff system. Yay. For the past few years, we've only had 1 or 2 teams at most complain every year because they weren't picked to be in the championship and they feel they should've been selected. Most notables are Auburn in 2003 and Utah in 2008. Both these teams went undefeated that year and didn't play for a championship. Okay, I understand that. But that was for the top 2 spots. How many teams do you think have had legitimate arguments over the past few years for being in the top 4? Lots! Let's look at last year.
In 2011, LSU was #1 (rightfully so at 13-0), Alabama #2 at 11-1, and Oklahoma State #3 at 11-1. Those 3 teams had arguments for being in the top 2 slots. Now we expand that to 4, and we bring in some other teams with arguments for being in that #3 or 4 spot. Stanford at #4 went 11-1 with their only loss being against Oregon, #5 at 10-2. Arkansas at #6, an SEC team, went 10-2 and Boise State at #7 went 11-1. If Arkansas is ranked above an 11-1 team, shouldn't they be a legitimate threat to the #4 spot? Shouldn't Boise State be at 11-1? What else do they have to do?
So last year, 3 schools would have been complaining about not getting into the playoffs. Even though we're going to a playoff system, these teams are still selected. It's all still subjective. Let's go to 2010.
Auburn (#1), Oregon (#2), and TCU (#3) were all undefeated going into the time playoff selection would have occured. Let's take a look at all the teams who have legitimate cases for that #4 spot:
Stanford #4 at 11-1
Wisconsin #5 at 11-1
Ohio State #6 at 11-1
Oklahoma #7 at 10-2
Arkansas #8 at 10-2
Michigan State #9 at 11-1
Boise State #10 at 11-1
We have 5 teams who went 11-1, so even if you don't include Oklahoma or Arkansas because they lost twice, we still have 5 schools who would have complained that they didn't get that 4th spot. How do you decide which 4 - 6 teams are cutoff?? And these are the easy decisions! Look at 2009.
We have 5 undefeated teams in the top 6:
Alabama #1 at 13-0
Texas #2 at 13-0
Cincinnati #3 at 12-0
TCU #4 at 12-0
Boise State #6 at 13-0
Then you also have Florida at #5 with a 12-1 record. Which two teams, one definitely undefeated with the possibility of two undefeateds, do you leave out?? You don't think they're gonna take issue?? Why should TCU get in and not Boise State? 2008 is really awful.
Look at the rundown:
Oklahoma #1 at 12-1
Florida #2 at 12-1
Texas #3 at 11-1
Alabama #4 at 12-1
USC#5 at 11-1
Utah #6 at 12-0
Texas Tech #7 at 11-1
Penn State #8 at 11-1
Boise State #9 at 12-0
Ball State #22 at 12-1
You have 2 undefeated teams, both out of the #1-4 spots.Then you have eight 1-loss teams (7 if you exclude Ball State... but is that fair?), so how do you decide on 2 spots for eight teams?! And that's if you selected the undefeateds. What if you only took Utah and three other 1-loss teams? How do you relay that news to Boise State?!
So while this playoff system won't actually diminish the regular season like it does in other sports, the whole motivation behind the playoff system was to make it fair to everyone so the complaints would be able to be justified and minimalized. Implementing this will do just the opposite: it will create more room for more schools to complain more. I guess the American people got what they wanted: more to complain about.
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