Sports Marketing Opportunities Lost?

The first playoff will have the top four ranked teams playing games to get into the championship. So if the season ended today, which it is not, #1 Notre Dame would play #4 Florida and #2 Alabama would play #3 Georgia. One loss teams Oregon and Kansas State would be left out of the competition.

The argument by the purists who don’t want a playoff system, say that a playoff would take the luster off the traditional bowl games. I don’t agree. I actually think it would add more to the excitement of the season. I also feel that there should be 8, 12 or even 16 teams in the playoffs. The non-conference games are usually easy games and are used to pad the records of the top teams. I would suggest only having one or two of these games as warm ups for the respective conferences.

With this kind of set up you would have many more schools involved until the end of the year. This would add tremendously to the sports marketing opportunities for the schools, the networks and the conferences.

If basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, and just about every other NCAA sanctioned sport can have deep playoffs, why not football? I think once everyone gets the taste in their mouth in 2014 for playoffs, it will only be a matter of time for expansion!

What are your challenges when it comes to sports marketing? I look forward to hearing your comments. Until next time…