Bowls, BCS, or bust? : a retrospective and comparative study of Division 1-A college football's bowl/Bowl Championship Series revenue distributions, versus a proposed 16-team playoffs

Division I-A Football is the only NCAA team sport without a playoff to determine its champion. Despite strong sentiment in favor of a playoff over the current Bowl Championship Series system, and admittance from top-level NCAA and Division I-A administrators that a playoff would increase overall revenues, the BCS/bowl system remains favored by the majority of university presidents and conference commissioners.This study examined one possible reason there is not a playoff. To achieve this, the revenues of the current system were compared to conservative revenue estimates of a proposed playoff, likely administered by the NCAA, similar to the Division I Basketball Championship.The goal was to determine how the current bowl relationships and contracts factor into university president's resistance to implement a playoff. The findings showed that while more overall revenue could be earned by a playoff, institutions could have less available unrestricted revenue to use at their discretion.