With a late June/early July deadline officially on the horizon, the BCS committee is in the homestretch of deciding the ins and outs of what college football’s four-team playoff will look like.
And one major detail may be close to being finalized.
Matt Hayes of The Sporting News reports (tweets), citing a BCS source, that the site of the new national championship game will be bid separately from the semifinals every year of its TV contract, meaning, if true, there would be no more rotation among BCS bowls for the title. The goal, Hayes continues, is to make the BCS championship -- or, whatever other title it may receive --a Super Bowl-like event with its own marketing, sponsorship, etc.
The debate among the BCS committee members has been whether to play the new championship game at a neutral site or keep it within the bowls.
Another detail up for grabs is the selection process. Most conferences, save the SEC, support a conference champion-only model, but Hayes adds that a mix of conference champs and an at-large could be used -- similar to the plan Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany proposed.
While the news of championship location is far from confirmed, a neutral site with a Super bowl-like feel would make sense with the recent announcement that the Big 12 and SEC will play in a new bowl game at a to-be-determined location. The immediate benefit of the bowl game, as we’ve said countless times already, is the ability for conferences to dictate the terms of the contract to maximize revenue. A neutral site championship game with its own TV contract, marketing efforts, etc, would follow the same logic.