An expanded college football playoff could possibly be worth over $1 billion.
Sports pundit Clay Travis wrote an interesting column Thursday discussing expansion, and some of the numbers are really interesting. (RELATED: The College Fo
The Outkick the Coverage founder wrote in part:
But let’s consider what we do know: if ESPN is presently paying $200 million per playoff game on a deal signed five years ago if I’m selling the college football playoff games I’m arguing each game is worth at least that much in an expanded playoff.
That would get you right at $1.2 billion, or a six hundred million dollar increase, for the playoff expanding from three games to seven games.
Why would I argue that? Because if I take less than $1.2 million I’m expanding to make less per playoff game. If I’m going to expand the playoff, I don’t want to undercut the market I’ve already set. Plus, I’m actually undercutting the rate per game a bit because I’m selling four games for $600 million as opposed to three games for $600 million.
If Clay’s logic is correct, and it by all metrics and measurements seems to be solid, then this is only further proof that we need to expand.
Look, I’ve argued that we need expansion for the sake of simply making the product better. The more games we have, then the more interest we will have. That’s simply a fact. In any situation in life, the more people brought into the fold, the more people you have that care.
Right now, we have four teams in the playoff. It’s a great start, but it can get much better. I think we need to be at eight teams, and again, I’m arguing that from a pure love of the game angle.
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Travis is discussing the economics behind it, and the numbers only further back up the idea that expansion would be good for everybody involved. There would likely be so much money to be made, and we all know the NCAA loves getting its grubby little fingers on every dollar possible.
If we can’t use our passion for the game to appeal to the power brokers, then we have no choice but to push the money angle. It’s possible that it’d be worth over a billion dollars. A billion dollars every single year!
This needs to happen so badly. Let’s get it done!