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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Bonus text 2 ...

With the hyper focus on the playoffs, fan interest in the bowl games has rapidly diminished.

For example, attendance at these games is much lower than in the past (probably as an inflation work-around) - plus the fans can watch the games on ESPN.

I understand why the Committee kept SMU in the playoffs, a decision that helps ensure the the conference title games will continue to be played.

However, circling back to my “follow-the-money” maxim, I did note that the ACC championship game seemed to have 20,000 empty seats … in a stadium that seats only 75,000 fans.

That is, fan interest in attending the ACC title game has never been great - and wasn’t this year even though two berths in the playoffs were at stake.

I think I’m correct in stating that the only conference championship game that has been a hard sell-out every year is the SEC title game in Atlanta.

While the conferences make extra money from selling even 50,000 tickets, the real money comes from ABC/ESPN, which pays the conference members tens of millions of dollars for the rights to televise these extra games.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Conference expansion always seemed non-sensical to me …

I always considered it odd that fans of SEC teams (or any league) were so excited when “their” conference added blue-blood teams to their league.

Didn’t these fans realize this was going to almost guarantee that “their” team was going to suffer many more losses in future football seasons?

That is, adding more formidable teams would lessen the probability your team would experience a happy or memorable season and make the playoffs … or a bowl game (which, as mentioned, few fans care about anymore).

More guaranteed regular season losses almost guarantees playoff expansion - to keep the fans at the sport’s most passionate programs from crying “foul” every year.

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