Hotline newsletter: College Football Playoff likely to be unkind but lucrative for the Pac-12
*** The Pac-12 Hotline newsletter is published each Monday-Wednesday-Friday during the college sports season and twice-a-week in the summer. (Sign up here for a free subscription.) This edition, from Sept. 18, has been made available in archived form.
CFP Prospects (and Paychecks)
Our attempt to address all angles of the Pac-12’s seemingly imminent decision to play football this fall has, thus far, omitted one important piece: The College Football Playoff.
So let’s dig in here and now, in advance of the presidents’ meeting this afternoon. (More on that below.)
In terms of access, there is no games-played requirement. The Pac-12 champion could be selected with a 6-0 or 7-0 record.
It could, but most certainly won’t.
If the conference winner plays three or four fewer games than the champions of the ACC, Big 12 and SEC — and perhaps even the best Group of Five team — it won’t be selected.
In that instance, the committee could point to the lack of data points (i.e., an incomplete resume) for the Pac-12 champ. But the backdrop would be one of perceived fairness: The conferences that didn’t postpone will have the advantage.
And were the Pac-12 and Big Ten winners to duel for the final berth, the latter conference’s earlier restart — by at least one and perhaps two weeks — would undoubtedly sway the committee.
The Pac-12’s best chance for a playoff berth is disruption elsewhere: The other Power Fives cancel or postpone enough games that the numbers come into alignment. That would balance the resumes and possibly force the CFP to push its calendar back into late January, allowing the Pac-12 to add games.
So from a competitive perspective, the CFP is extremely unlikely for the Pac-12. The presidents assuredly realized that when they voted in August and obviously didn’t care.
(With health and safety as the priority, they shouldn’t have cared.)
The financial situation appears more encouraging for the Pac-12.
The Hotline is aware of nothing in the contracts that would prevent the conference from collecting its full media-rights share from the CFP’s agreement with ESPN.
This isn’t a Rose Bowl year. The Granddaddy is scheduled to host a semifinal, so the Pac-12 champion, if not in the playoff, would be sent to the Fiesta or Peach bowls.
That changes the total postseason revenue for the conference, from $115 million to approximately $85 million.
We won’t get into those weeds — here’s some background, if you’re interested — because there is another piece to this: Even the CFP doesn’t know the size of the 2020-21 revenue pie.
Bill Hancock, executive director of the CFP, told ESPN’s Heather Dinich last week that the situation, like everything else about the season, is fluid:
“The revenue distribution for this year’s games has not been finalized. It will depend on several factors, including the stadium capacities. We don’t know yet.”
Bottom line on the end game: Pac-12 fans and athletic departments should presume 1) no playoff berth 2) a full share of the revenue pie and 3) a potentially smaller pie. — Jon Wilner
Hot off the Hotline
We didn’t publish an edition early in the week, and my apologies for that — the news cycle was simply too fast and relentless. But the Hotline pumped out a barrage of articles (news stories and columns) on the developments. I have summarized and linked them here.
Some are well out of date, but all are included:
Saturday: The return of the Saturday Night Five insta-reaction column examined how the Big Ten was better positioned to restart than the Pac-12 because of forces beyond the league’s control. Also in the column: USC’s anniversary, opt-out updates, division dynamics and more.
Sunday: My first AP top-25 in-season ballot, which featured more teams from the Sun Belt than the Pac-12 and Big Ten combined.
Monday: The point-of-care antigen tests acquired by the Pac-12 for daily use are, according to computer modeling, more effective at reducing Covid-19 infectiousness than the PCR tests used by the NFL. We examined the science behind the conference’s game-changer (warning: charts and data included).
Tuesday: One school has already conducted 25,000 antigen tests with the same Quidel product that athletic departments will use. Arizona’s BioBank is way ahead, and the program’s director is impressed with the accuracy.
Wednesday: Soon after the Big Ten announced its return, the Hotline framed the only response possible for the Pac-12: It had to play this fall, even if that required the California Four to move to Arizona for two months … To the surprise of just about everybody, California Governor Gavin Newsom said during a press conference that state restrictions weren’t preventing teams from returning to the field … Given his surprising answer, we attempted to explain how the California schools were supposed to conduct practice under state restrictions. The conversation with a public health official was essentially a trip through the Twilight Zone (seriously, you won’t believe what the state expected) … Later in the afternoon, the conference announced that Newsom and Oregon’s Kate Brown had cleared the way for their teams to practice, moving the Pac-12 one giant step closer to a fall return … And at dusk, the Hotline reported a major breakthrough out of L.A., where USC and UCLA banded together to get relief from county health officers.
Thursday: Pac-12 athletic directors have targeted Oct. 31 as the preferred date for the season to begin, sources told the Hotline, but several obstacles must be cleared … The #WeAreUnited movement needs a restart, just like Pac-12 football. We have some ideas for the players, whose need for a platform has not changed.
Friday: What should we expect from the presidents and chancellors this afternoon? Anything is possible, but the most likely scenario is a delay on the vote for a start date, perhaps until next week. We previewed the key issues.
• Previous editions of the newsletter are available in archived form
Looking Ahead
What’s coming on the Pac-12 Hotline:
• We’ll have full coverage of the presidents meeting this afternoon, although there’s a chance the news will be limited in scope.
• As for the weekend and early next week: It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a pandemic. I have loads of content planned, including an installment of Saturday Night Five, but it’s all at the mercy of the news cycle. But fret not. We’ll have a chance to catch our breath … in April.
The next newsletter is (tentatively) scheduled for Tuesday. Like it? Please forward this email to friends (sign up here). If you don’t, or have other feedback, let me know: pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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