Four-team playoff proposal turned down by BCS

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Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Major college football settles its national championship in a way that's unique, that substitutes a single, No. 1-vs.-2 showdown for a full-blown playoff. Some years, it's effective. Others, it's an exasperation.

But the sport is sticking with it.

The conference commissioners who manage the Bowl Championship Series chose Wednesday to end their brief consideration of a new plus-one format, which would have built a four-team playoff into the current five-bowl structure. Their action — or lack of it — assures the current system will remain in place through at least the 2013 season.

"The thing. .. that came through loud and clear is there's satisfaction with where we are," said Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner and BCS coordinator John Swofford.

The commissioners, along with Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White, ended three days of meetings in Hollywood during which they weighed the future of the 10-year-old arrangement. Current contracts among conferences, bowls and televisions networks expire after the '09 season, and new negotiations with current TV rightsholder Fox are scheduled to begin sometime after Sept. 1.

Only two of the 11 commissioners, Swofford and the Southeastern Conference's Mike Slive, pushed Wednesday to further explore the plus-one option, Swofford said. "The health of the game was a dominant factor in many people's thinking," Slive said.

Attendance at major college football games averaged a record 46,962 last season, the 11th consecutive year that number has climbed. ABC, whose regular-season college football viewership hit a 10-year high in 2006, dipped 15% to an average of almost 4.4 million households in '07. But ratings for ESPN and CBS were the highest since 1999, and game viewership on ESPN2 averaged a record 1.027 million households, according to the networks.

Opponents to change worried about compromising that regular-season popularity. They also feared a four-team playoff inevitably would grow to eight teams or more, gutting the traditional bowl system and further diminishing the regular season.