Thursday May 21 Links and Banter
Are we at the long weekend yet?
Hi Tony.
Remember me? Last summer, I wrote you an open letter about your college playoff expansion plan. You were vigorously pushing a 16-team playoff bracket with guaranteed slots for at least four Big Ten teams, and you so eloquently referenced the role the fans played in these discussions. I believe you noted that the fans “care about the tradition of it and all that.”
You didn’t read my letter, did you? Goddamit, Tony.
Ok, so last year, your proposal was for a 16-team CFP bracket. Where are we now, after nine long months of Indiana Hoosier domination?
Per the New York Times, “Tony Petitti gave his first extensive public comments in support of a 24-team College Football Playoff model, making it clear the league has no interest in pursuing a 16-team format.”
Tony. Tony. My man. I ask this with all the respect that is due: what the fuck?
Your conference has won the last three straight CFPs with three different teams (one of which, again, was the goddamn Indiana Hoosiers). The system as presently constituted clearly works just fine for the most storied and monied sports conference in the country.
I ask again, with slightly different wording: Tony, what’s your fucking deal? What’s the point of all of this?
Yes, I know it’s the money. That was clear when you referred to college football games as “inventory.”
See, here’s the thing. We, the fans, are the consumers of your inventory. You might think that your customers are the media companies and their commercial advertiser partners. I can see why you would think that, mostly because you obviously spend substantial parts of your day with comically absurd green dollar signs awoooga-ing out of your eyes. But you would be wrong! We are the consumer. And in contrast to you, we actually like college football.
That scarcity of inventory? It’s a good thing. It means that the games matter. It means that those trophy games, those traditions that you so clearly don’t understand or respect? They take 364 days to refresh. It’s why they matter so damn much to us. This sport just isn’t built like baseball, where there are 162 games and rivalries are renewed several times across the length and breadth of a summer. And that’s ok! American sports are weird and unique. There are complex, regional histories at play for each sport; they don’t all need to look the same. And I’m sure you understand that. For god'ssakes, you worked at the MLB for over a decade.
"When I was at baseball, we never had to convince anybody that keeping more teams in the race is better for everybody and the fans, like we never had to do that," he said. "I feel like in this space, like we're kind of being asked to do that. It's almost counterintuitive. I think that more teams alive as late as possible is a fundamental way that I thought about it when we're changing the playoff schedule."
I’m sorry to tell you this, but the consumer does not want the product. We don’t want it. Despite what you would believe, this sport is bigger than the national championship trophy. The average Iowa fan does not clamor for a #14 seed bid to the bracket. They want to kick game-winning field goals in 9-6 score wins over Iowa State, Nebraska, and Minnesota. They want to get shitfaced after seven Busch Lites at halftime alone while waving to the kids in the Children’s Hospital overlooking Kinnick, then scream obscenities at the visiting Wisconsin Badgers.
The games matter, the rivalries matter, the traditions matter.
Tony, you do not understand that college football fans are a unique, bizarre, occasionally unhealthily obsessed bunch. You do not understand your job.
You don’t get it.
