Power Ball

"Doesn't matter what you call them bruh! They all spell money!"

I’m always blown away by the amount of folks that have sports talk radio and television shows that don’t know the first thing about sports! I’m not talking about the games themselves, I’m talking about the business that drives the game. Then they make ignorant comments to an audience that will believe everything that they say because they’re viewed as the expert. So as a result you have a nation of sports fans that don’t understand what’s going on either.

 Major college football is a beast all to itself and in order to talk about it you’ve got to understand how, why and what drives it. If you don’t understand how it’s set up and the history of it you’ll never understand the business of it from the school’s perspective. That’s why I’m here bruh!

This isn’t the NFL where all of the teams are owned by billionaires where there is a profit sharing situation going on and the league mandates a draft that allows the worse teams to draft first to keep things honest. It’s all done to try to provide a since of parity so that the same teams don’t always have a financial or competitive advantage over the others. Now on some real talk, some organizations are just better run than others so they win anyway. In college football the rich get richer because they get better players every year and therefore they keep winning.

The division 1 or FBS level that it’s now called has 120 schools that probably represent 5 different levels of play because of their ability or inability to recruit. It’s not like the NFL where everybody has professional level talent. So therefore, when I hear clowns suggest that they should eliminate the bowl system all together so that there can be a playoff they aren’t looking at the entire landscape of college football. They’re only thinking about those teams that would be competing for a national title. What do you do with the other 110 schools or so?

There are 34 bowls that will kick off later this week that will run through the holidays and will culminate with the BCS National Title Game on January 7th. That means that 68 of those 120 schools get to participate in the bowl season. Not just the 4, 8 or 16 teams that these media clowns keep pushing you to buy going forward. The first thing these cats will say is that the smaller bowls are meaningless and that they are a waste of time. When they make comments like that it shows just how ignorant they are to what’s really going on or how bad they're trying to run game on you!

Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! The bowls are guaranteed revenue for both the schools and conferences alike and no president is going to vote to eliminate guaranteed money to have a full fledged playoff that may or may not include them. Schools are constantly looking for revenue streams and college football is the biggest money maker on just about every campus in America. Football revenue not only supports the athletic departments but it also pays for all new construction on campus and all of the research done in the science, math and physics departments. So it’s bigger than just playing football homeboy, its big business for the school.

Do you really think that Cincinnati and Duke would vote for a playoff and leave the $1.7 million that the Belk Bowl in Charlotte is going to pay them just for showing up this year? That payout is for each school bruh not the total bowl payout that has to be split.  The Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl in Tempe is paying Michigan State and TCU $3.3 million each. The Pinstrip Bowl in the Bronx is handing Syracuse and West Virginia $1.8 million. The dull Heart of Dallas Bowl is throwing Oklahoma State and Purdue $1.1 million just for showing up. None of those teams will ever play for a national title or even be in the hunt for one because they don't have the players or the coaches to win one. Why? Because it costs money to compete at that level!

 So why would they agree to take money off of the table so that the rich could get even more rich! Do you really think they'll just concede to let schools like Notre Dame, Alabama, Oregon and LSU play it off and make even more bread?  That’s like believing that the mafia just gave Vegas up to big corporations for nothing without any residual payout. In my Ochocinco voice, “Child Please!” If you believe that I’ve got some palms trees to sell you imported from Gary, In.

Also those cities that are hosting the bowls are generating money for their local economies. The train left the station 70 or 80 years ago and they can’t pull it back in at this point. Too many cats are getting paid to think boyz will just give it up. So to say that the smaller bowls mean nothing is crazy. Those schools don’t get to keep that bread outright because they have to split it with the conference. However, if 5 or 6 teams go bowling that’s more bread for the conference to split.

Now the BCS Bowls all pay $17 million each to the participating schools win or lose and the national title game pays $18 million. Now all of that money is brought back to the respective conferences and divided up equally. So the key is for the conference to get as many schools in a bowl as possible so they can get more bread. Not only is the money important but these schools get national exposure that not only helps in recruiting student-athletes but also in recruiting students too!

 So when you’re listening to the cats on television pushing an agenda for a playoff, understand that they’re trying to get paid too. This has nothing to do with the student-athlete or the schools. It has everything to do with ESPN/ABC or Fox etc. getting paid at the player’s expense. Ask that same dun if he or she would give up guaranteed money out of their pay check for the sake of a full fledged playoff because it would be better for the game. To a man or woman they’ll all say no! So stop listening to cats that you think are the so-called experts because they’re in on the hustle too. Stop me when I start lyin'!

Holla At Ya Boy!
Jay Graves
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