Young and the restless bringing about playoffs

Sporting News, The, March 28, 1994 by Ivan Maisel

The phrase "Final Four" is an NCAA trademark. That means, of course, that whenever the football playoff arrives, we'll get a dose of that phrase in January as well as March.

About the I-A playoff: It will get here when the money is right. Not exactly a news flash, true. But as the NCAA hierarchy takes its most serious look at a playoff in decades, their research amounts to one question: Is the money right?

The politics seem to be right. There has been no stauncher foe of a playoff and what it represents -- crass commercialization -- than UCLA Chancellor Charles Young. Yet Young is the leader of the four-person fact-finding group looking at a playoff.

Young attributes his conversion to the speech former NCAA executive director Dick Schultz made last year in Dallas. He suggested that the membership look into a I-A playoff as a method of financing more opportunities for women.

Colleagues within the Pacific 10 Conference say Young had his head turned by Michael Ovitz, the chief of Creative Artists Agency. CAA and Nike made a $125-million playoff proposal to the NCAA last year.

Young placed the worth of a playoff from $15 million to $100 million, depending upon the number of rounds.

"I think a four-team playoff maximizes the playoff revenue," Young says. "Beyond that, I think it may get smaller. At some point, there is a finite amount of advertising dollars, sponsorship dollars and community support."

Those three things are the gears and wheels that make bowls go. The bowls proudly point out that they bring $70 million into intercollegiate athletics every year. Unfortunately, that's a gross figure, not net.

"A great deal of that ($70 million) is poured right back to the bowls, hotels and airlines in support of their bowls," Maryland Athletic Director Andy Geiger says. "There are requirements that you buy tickets. As an athletic director, you're working as hard as you can to go to these bowls and not lose money."

Geiger took advantage of airline ticket sales three years ago to keep his team out of the red when it played in the Independence Bowl. The Terrapins traveled to Shreveport on several different flights to save money. It shows that the bowls, especially the minor ones, aren't the financial windfall they claim to be.

Still, it will be much easier for the membership to swallow if the first playoff format incorporates the bowls. The consensus appears to be focusing upon a four-team playoff staged after the current bowls. It appears to be the most profitable format, as well.

There are skeptics. January isn't known as a good time for television advertising. Few companies market after Christmas.

Discussion of a playoff never comes at a good time for the bowls. However, the timing this spring is atrocious. Most of the major New Year's Day bowls must negotiate contracts with the networks, title sponsors and leagues.

The Cotton Bowl is set with Mobil as its sponsor. But there's one year remaining in the deal with NBC. There are two years left of the Southwest Conference. Cotton Bowl Executive Director Rick Baker says his people understand the gravity of the situation.

"We're taking it very seriously," says Baker, chairman of the Bowl Coalition. "Even though there's a lot of discussion, that doesn't mean it's going to happen."

Young said his four-person NCAA study group will recommend what format a playoff should take. That recommendation will go to an 18-person committee, which will report to the NCAA Executive Committee and Presidents Commission.

The NCAA had planned to announce the members of the committee earlier this month. However, it's trying to shield them from the inevitable public attention they will receive, so no word yet.

The committee will meet May 5 and 6 to begin to decide what legislation will make the agenda of the 1995 NCAA Convention.

Thank you for the (yawn) bureaucratic report. The playoff decision will come down to whether other I-A presidents can make the philosophical leap from the high horse of academics to the golden ox of playoff riches.

Young, who has cut budgets and entire sports from his athletic program, made it. He needs the money. That brings us back to the original premise. Presidents may say they want a playoff for the cause of gender equity. Turns out we can drop the word "gender."

A center for James

What had been billed as a ceremony for retired Washington Coach Don James last week turned into much more.

Some 2,000 Huskies fans, former players and friends turned out to honor James, who retired last August in protest of the penalties assessed the football program by the Pacific 10 Conference.

Among the many former players who turned out were Oilers quarterback Warren Moon and Falcons offensive lineman Lincoln Kennedy.

The university did well for the coach who took it to six Rose Bowls and one national championship. It gave him gifts, including two cruises and a Husky puppy to be born in July -- for which James said he would find a home.

More important, the university changed the name of the Tyee Center, a glass-enclosed reception area that runs the length of the field on the south side of Husky Stadium, to the Don James Center.