Why a college football playoff means the end of the Rose Parade... and important community ties

But abolishing the bowls does away with much more than a few football games, which would be replaced by playoff contests, anyway. How many people would support a college football playoff if it meant, for example, no longer having a Rose Parade on New Year's Day?

Because that's exactly what a playoff system would do. It would endanger the survival of the Rose Parade, as well as a long list of other community traditions that collectively, mean hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact to the communities which host them. Sure, a football playoff might mean a larger payday for participating universities and their conferences. But only at a larger cost to the communities that have supported and hosted them for generations.

I took a look at the most recent available IRS Form 990 for the Tournament of Roses [1.9 MB PDF file], the Pasadena, California non-profit which stages both the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade. In 2008, the Tournament of Roses reported gross receipts of $50,627,639. Sounds like a healthy organization all around, right?

That's just the point, the Tournament of Roses is financially healthy as an organization that puts on a football game and a parade (as well as funding some local charities and causes). Take away the football game, though, and the balance sheet changes.

The 2008 Rose Bowl Game earned $43,093,624 in revenue, against $38,504,060 in expenses, according to the Tournament of Roses' Form 990. But the Rose Parade earned just $4,536,587 in revenue against expenses of $7,650,560.

That means that the Rose Parade runs $3.1 million in the red. Only a $4.6 million profit from the Rose Bowl Game allows the Tournament of Roses to stay in the black, overall.

Take away that bowl game, and I can't envision a scenario that allows the Rose Parade to continue. Think that the community will fund it? Think again. The Pasadena schools have been facing a $20 million deficit, thanks to cuts in state funding. There's no way that the City of Pasadena is going to hand over $3 million-plus to the Rose Parade in that environment. (Traditionally, the Tournament of Roses pays Pasadena to cover expenses in hosting the parade.)

Television ratings for the Rose Parade have been declining in recent years, as the Tournament of Roses has weakened its traditional ties with the Big Ten and Pacific 10 conferences, whose champions met in the Rose Bowl Game for decades. With the Big Ten and Pac-10 joining the BCS, its champions have been called away to the BCS title game in some years, sending representatives from other conferences to Pasadena.

Parades hosted by other bowl committees have suffered far worse. The King Orange Jamboree Parade, once held on New Year's Eve, preceding the next day's Orange Bowl, died in 2002 after losing its TV contract in 1997. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Bowl Alliance (the predecessor to the BCS) did away with conference tie-ins to the Orange and Sugar Bowls between 1995-97, severing the connection between the Plains and Midwest states covered by the old Big 8 conference to the Orange Bowl and its parade. When the BCS restored conference tie-ins, the Orange Bowl became affiliated with the Big East Conference, and later, the Atlantic Coast Conference. But by then the community damage was done.

So what if Miami, or the Los Angeles area, loses a parade? A UCLA study of Tournament of Roses events in 2005 attributed $208 million in direct expenditures and $370.3 million in total economic impact to Southern California from the parade, game and associated events.

Though I was born in Los Angeles, I grew up in Indianapolis, and let me tell you, the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade were important events to people in the Midwestern Big Ten states when I was growing up. Just as the Orange Bowl was to people in the old Big 8 states and the Sugar Bowl was to people in the states covered by the Southeastern Conference. Having those bowl tie-ins in place builds marketing momentum for these destinations, year after year.

That momentum won't continue under a playoff system, unless conference champions are sent to the same destination year after year. Even then, fans are more likely to spend the money to travel to a season-ending bowl game, instead of an early-round playoff game that might lead to a future game at another destination.

If college football champs want a true national champion, there is a better system. Simply create a game where the top two teams, ranked by the sports' coaches at the end of the season, so there is accountability to those within the sport, play for the title.

Sound familiar? With a little tweaking, that's essentially the system that the BCS now provides.

Here's how the BCS could provide a national college football champion while preserving and refreshing the conference tie-ins that cultivate strong economic impacts to hosting communities. The key is to ensure that each conference sends a representative to the same bowl each year, to build a relationship between a bowl host and the people and fans of a conference's geographic region.

To build political support for an improved BCS, the champions of the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences should be included, along with the champions of the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12 (the successor to the Big 8), ACC, SEC and Big East conferences, which are included now. That would require adding a sixth bowl game to the BCS mix - I'd suggest the Cotton Bowl, one of the traditional big four "commodity" bowls, along with the BCS's Rose, Sugar and Orange Bowls. (The Fiesta Bowl and the BCS championship game are the other current BCS contests.) Play the game at 1 pm Eastern on New Year's Day to avoid broadcast conflicts with other BCS games.

I suspect that much of the current support for a playoff is actually frustration over leaving Mountain West and WAC schools out of automatically qualifying for the BCS. I say, let 'em in; add a game; problem solved.

To reduce controversy over the selection of teams to the BCS, I'd simplify the complicated formula that nows governs the selection of the top two teams in favor of simply taking the top two teams from the season-ending coaches' poll. That'd be easier for fans to understand, and place responsibility for the sports' championship in the hands of its coaches, instead of outsiders' computers and selected media and celebrities, as now play roles in the process.

Finally, to cement community ties to the games, I'd assign each conference champion to a specific game. Currently, the Big Ten and Pac-10 champs play in the Rose Bowl, the Big 12 champ in the Fiesta, the SEC champion in the Sugar and the ACC champ in the Orange. The Mountain West, WAC and Big East champs would need homes among the Cotton, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls, and that should have to be left to conference and bowl leaders to sort out.

But when a conference champion is selected to play in the BCS championship game, the second place team in that conference should be selected to go to its conference partner bowl in the champion's place. That assures that a representative from the partner conference will play in each bowl each year.

This system, call it BCS 2.0, provides it all - participation for teams from every major conference, a true national championship game, and enduring regional ties to bowl games that fuel lucrative economic impact for hosting communities.

Forget about a playoff, it's a system-wrecking pseudo-solution that colleges, fans and bowl hosting communities cannot afford.

Update: Take a look at this report from Forbes, which lists the Rose Bowl as the fifth most-valuable brand in sports, one spot ahead of the NCAA basketball tournament. (The top four are the Super Bowl, the Summer Olympics, the Soccer World Cup and the Daytona 500.)

Remember, this is the economic impact of the Rose Bowl alone, not including the impact of Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and BCS Bowls. Given that the NCAA basketball tournament, which involves far many more teams, fans and sites than any football playoff could, can't beat the economic impact of the Tournament of Roses, it seems economic folly to me to consider gutting the Rose Bowl in favor of a playoff.

So let's be honest, if college football fans want a playoff, it would come at a multi-million-dollar price. There would be no overall economic benefit, only a loss. Given where that loss would be concentrated, it seems to me that California's Congressional delegation should be leading the charge to fight attempts to legislate a college football playoff.

Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com