In 2014 the total revenue College Football Playoff revenue was $402,939,299. Rather than split the revenue equally amongst the 10 members of FBS it was decided that 5 conferences would receive 80% of the revenue, and the other 5 wold receive 20%. That means the P5 received $321,867,698 and the G5 received $81,071,601.
At this rate, over the 12 year lifespan of the CFP contract the P5 are on pace to earn $2,889,553,164 MORE than the G5. That’s $2.9 Billion. with a “B”. Remember that the next time the P5 complains about the G5 holding them back from offering additional financial benefits to student athletes.
This contract insures that the rich stays rich, but more importantly, it insures that the poor stays poor. Why is this institutionalized poverty for half of the league so critical? It’s important because without it the P5 would lose their illusion of being vastly superior.
This fall the SEC will play 112 football games, 56 of those will be conference matchups and 56 of those will be against non conference opponents. We already know the outcome of the conference games- 56 SEC teams will win, 56 SEC will lose, 56 SEC teams will play at home, and 56 SEC teams will play on the road. The net result of conference games is an equal number of wins/losses and games played home/away.
The mythological dominance of the P5 is thus created in the other half of the schedule, the 56 games vs non conference opponents. There are 14 teams in the SEC, each team will have 4 non conference games. Here is a breakdown of the non conference schedule for the SEC in 2015-
Game #1.
-FCS opponent at home. 14/14 SEC teams will play an FCS opponent at home. Playing a team from a lower division at home is as close to a guaranteed win as you can get.
Game #2.
-G5 opponent at home. 14/14 SEC teams will play at least 1 G5 opponent at home with no option for a return game. Playing a member of the same league that is financially crippled by an 80/20 revenue share insures the SEC team will have more resources, better talent, and a home field advantage with no risk of making a return trip on the road. It’s as close to a guaranteed win against another league member as you can get. This is not by accident.
Game #3.
- G5 opponent at home. 12/14 SEC teams will play a second G5 opponent at home.
- P5 opponent at home. So Carolina will play 1 of 2 P5 teams at home. (UNC and Clemson)
- G5 opponent away. Vandy will play 1 of 2 G5 teams on the road (MTSU and Houston). MTSU is 37 miles from campus.
Game #4.
- G5 opponent away. 4/14 SEC teams will play a G5 opponent on the road. None of these 4 teams will play a P5.
- P5 at home. 6/14 SEC teams will play a P5 opponent at home (So Car will play two)
- P5 on the road. 2/14 SEC teams will play P5 teams on the road (LSU at Syracuse, Georgia at Georgia Tech_
- P5 neutral- 2/14 SEC teams will play a P5 team at a neutral location.
Out of 56 non conference games in 2015 the SEC will play-
11 games v P5
45 games v non P5 (31 v G5, 14 v FCS)
47 home games
7 away game
2 neutral
- The SEC plays 40% of all games scheduled vs competition that have a deliberately engineered financial disadvantage.
- Scheduling 45/56 OOC games vs non-P5 allows the SEC to benefit financially from an additional 19 home games while avoiding the travel costs of 19 road games.
- only 12.5% of SEC non conference games are true road games.
- only 3.5% of SEC non conference games are P5 road games.
This is how you stack all the chips in your favor. There is no such thing as fair competition in FBS college football, the system is rigged. When are the fans of the ones getting screwed going to stop talking about how they can get their team into the group of Haves and start talking about how to change the system all together?