Beware of unintended consequences with likely CFP expansion | LSU

The known universe isn’t expanding as fast as the College Football Playoff these days.

Nothing official yet, but multiple reports say there is a handshake agreement between CFP leaders and ESPN for the playoff to expand from 12 to 24 teams, likely next season.

To review, college football has gone from no playoff to a BCS championship game after the 1998 season rotating among the bowls, to a separate BCS title game after the 2006 season, to a four-team CFP in 2014, to a 12-team CFP in 2024, to this.

Why is this happening?

“It’s just all money,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Tuesday.

“Follow the money” has always been sage advice. In this case, though, a doubled CFP hardly promises doubled profits.

A 24-team CFP likely would eliminate conference championship games, and  ESPN (which televises the SEC, ACC and Big 12 title games) and Fox (Big Ten) will claw back hundreds of millions in rights fees. Including tickets and sponsorships, that’s reportedly $325 million total. According to Yahoo Sports, ESPN/ABC will pay about $345 million on top of its current $1.3 billion annual rights fees for the CFP (some games are on TNT and HBO Max). Ultimately, per Yahoo, that means only an extra $2.8 million per SEC school, $2.5 million for Big Ten teams, and $1.5 million more for Big 12 and ACC teams.

So again, why expand? The answer is FOMO: Fear of missing out.

LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry and coach Lane Kiffin both favor a 24-team CFP, especially since this season the Southeastern Conference went to a nine-game league schedule. Schools also must play one other program from a Power Four conference.

“I think you can lose two to three games and still be a team that contends for a playoff,” Ausberry told the LSU Board of Supervisors last week. “There’s a lot of good teams we think in the SEC that can miss out.”

SEC football coaches were sold on a nine-game conference schedule with the promise that the CFP would expand. Expansion would mean the difference between likely averaging four CFP teams as in the previous two years to likely double that. Using this week’s AP poll to make a rough comparison, there are nine SEC teams ranked from 5-22.

“When the decision was made by the league to go to nine games, I felt we have to go to 24,” Kiffin said Sunday. “Because we’re going to play these nine conference games, we’re going to have seasons with a lot of nine-win teams.

“It gives you a better chance to get the right teams in.”

One or two 9-3 teams could get in the CFP this year. A 24-team playoff likely will have some 8-4 teams, too.

Does an 8-4 team deserve a title shot? Not really. It had its chance in the regular season.

“Regular season” is where all the doomsayers say CFP expansion derails college football. Those in favor of expansion say it will enhance the regular season, with more teams in the playoff mix.

I’m not in favor of expanding the CFP past 16 teams. But I also can’t say for sure which is right, the expansionists or the status quo crowd.

One thing I am sure of: In this headlong rush to expand the CFP, the law of unintended consequences and the scarcity principle are being ignored.

It seems every time there’s a major decision in college sports, there’s an unintended consequence or three that has been ignored. This all may lead to a “super league” of the top 32-64 college football programs. Or the top schools may break away even from the SEC or Big Ten to play as football independents like Notre Dame.

If that happens, what about the other sports? The NCAA basketball and baseball tournaments? Don’t tell me women’s tennis or gymnastics don’t matter, because Title IX guaranteeing equal access for men’s and women’s athletes is still the law.

Then we come to the scarcity principle. To the surprise of no one, I’m going to make a Masters golf comparison here. The Masters had a field of 91 players this year, compared to 156 in the U.S. Open. Tickets to Augusta National, even for practice rounds, are harder to get than an invitation to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s mansion. Making the Masters a scarce commodity has made it one of the most celebrated annual events in sports.

And then there is future expansion. A 36-team playoff, anyone? Forty-eight?

I wish there was leadership enough in college athletics so someone had the sense to tap the brakes on all these changes: conference realignment, broken rivalries, NIL, the CFP.

Playoff expansion will come. Will the realization one day accompany it that the current powers have disfigured college sports beyond recognition?

That I wish I knew.