STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
College football is changing again. The College Football Playoff committee is doubling the number of teams that will compete in the playoffs, starting next year. It's going from 12 schools up to 24. ESPN signed a $1.7 billion contract to be the sole broadcast rights holder, according to The Athletic. And we've called Matt Baker of The Athletic to talk about this. Good morning.
MATT BAKER: Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK, so just to review, used to be no playoff in college football, then four teams for many years were in a playoff, and then just a couple of years ago they went up to 12 teams. Why expand to 24?
BAKER: Yeah, the main thing is it really comes down to access. You look at right now, there's 12 teams or 12 spots available for 138 teams. Compare that to the NFL, for instance, where there's 14 playoff spots for 32 teams.
INSKEEP: OK.
BAKER: So you kind of think about that. Just from an access standpoint, it doesn't make sense compared to other sports. And the other thing we have to remember, too, is the money in college football has exploded the last few years. Schools, boosters, donors - they're spending tens of millions of dollars on their coaches, on their player payrolls, so they want something more from their investment.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) They want a payoff.
BAKER: They want a bigger return on investment. Yeah, they want a little payoff here, right? In order - and going to the Mayo Bowl or the Pop-Tarts Bowl, that's not enough for them. They see the playoff - that's the light at the end of the tunnel, and that's what would make the investments worth it.
INSKEEP: OK. I don't know what your problem is with Pop-Tarts, but let's...
BAKER: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: ...Fire up the controversy here. I've been looking at reactions to this. The Coach of Notre Dame says, whatever, fine. It's more chances for us to get into playoffs. But I also was reading Lexie Linderman - student at Penn State, which has a big football program - she's writing in The Daily Collegian, the college newspaper, this is going to diminish the interest in regular-season games. It's going to diminish the interest in conference championships. They won't matter as much. She writes, fans are outraged on social media, saying the people making these decisions only care about money, which at this point is 100% true. Is that 100% true?
BAKER: It's not 100% true because this was one of the few decisions that wasn't driven solely by money. You know, ESPN is paying a lot for this, but when you do the math, it's really only about $200 million extra that ESPN's going to pay for this.
INSKEEP: OK.
BAKER: And then you divide that over the 68 power schools and the other ones, it's not a significant amount. It is really about the access.
However, the whole point on devaluing the regular season, I think that's 100% going to be true. You know, you look at the Miami-Notre Dame game over the weekend, where Notre Dame pretty much had to beat No. 1 Miami to have a shot at the playoff. In the 24-team world, that game doesn't matter as much. Some games will matter more. You know, look at Ohio State-Northwestern this weekend - two three-loss teams. That would have a lot more stakes in a 24-team playoff, where maybe that's an elimination game. But the biggest games, the game-of-the-century-type things, No. 1, No. 5 - that type of stuff that meant so much and defined who would win a national championship for decades in the sport - that means a whole heck of a lot less going forward.
INSKEEP: Does college football have a kind of structural problem building here, in that of course players in the new rules, the new world, are getting more and more and more money, but ratings are not necessarily going up? - in some cases, even going down.
BAKER: College football has a (laughter) whole bunch of problems. That's a whole different show. But, yeah, I think there's legitimate concern about what this is going to do for the playoff.
You also have to look at attendance. This is on track to be the lowest, you know, butts-in-seats season in a very long time. So there are legitimate concerns about this when you combine the transfer portal, paying players, conferences going coast to coast. The college football that a lot of people fell in love with is changing rapidly, and that's something that I don't think the power brokers quite understand.
INSKEEP: Matt Baker of The Athletic, thanks for your insights.
BAKER: Thank you.
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