The Optimal Playoff Size

Back in 2014, college football fans got what they had been clamoring for since the sport began –a playoff. No longer would computers and stodgy old newspapermen decide the best team in college football. The champion would be determined on the field and there would be no controversy. No split titles and no politicking in the press or on television. Just the best eight sixteen thirty two four teams deciding things between the lines. By most accounts, the playoff has been a massive success. There have been a few stinkers, but also some classics. The hoopla surrounding the games and the selection show has provided ESPN with countless topics and talking points for their on-air talent to pontificate on. Even the commercials have been pretty good. Of course, when somethings is successful, that inevitably leads to expansion, which in this case is bracket creep. Everyone knows it’s just a matter of time before the playoff expands. The big questions are, when it expands, how much will it grow, and who will be included? To try and come up with an optimal number of playoff teams, I looked to college basketball, a sport that has used a tournament to crown its champion for nearly 80 years.

Before we look at college basketball, let’s take a look at the FBS playoff. Currently, the playoff includes the four ‘best’ teams. ‘Best’ of course, can mean different things to different people, but let’s assume the four teams selected are indeed, the best of what’s around. Currently 130 teams play at the FBS level. So, the playoff includes about 3% of the FBS population.

But let’s be real here. New Mexico State and Alabama are not really playing football at the same level. New Mexico State could win every game on their schedule for the next ten years, and probably would not ever sneak into the four-team playoff. In fact, no team from the Group of Five has finished higher than twelfth in the final playoff rankings. For all intents and purposes, those teams outside the Power Five and Notre Dame are not eligible for the playoff. Therefore, the playoff includes about 6% of the playoff-eligible population.

In 2011, the NCAA basketball tournament expanded to 68 teams. I was not a huge fan of this development, but no one consulted me. About 350 teams have played Division I basketball each season since the field expanded, give or take. This means that roughly 20% of all teams playing DI basketball make the playoff.

Of course, as in football, most teams really have no shot of winning the national championship. A few years ago Jim Boeheim bitched about the tournament not expanding despite more teams moving up to Division I. Boeheim is partially right. Twenty years ago, there were only 305 teams playing collegiate basketball at the highest level. DI membership has increased by about 15% in the last two decades. However, those newcomers are not competing with Syracuse for a bid to the tournament. Teams like Longwood and Cal State Bakersfield are competing with teams of similar history and stature for one automatic ticket to the Big Dance. In April, I wrote a piece regarding at-large bids in the NCAA tournament. I’m still waiting on my Pulitzer, but the conclusion is that there are essentially eight leagues that dominate the pool of at-large bids to the NCAA tournament. Those leagues are the Power Five football conferences, the Big East, the American, and the Atlantic-10. If you don’t play in one of those leagues (or are not a certain private institution located in Spokane, Washington), you don’t have much of a shot at the national title. However, if you do play in one of those leagues, there is basically a two in five five shot you will make the playoff.

Until I ran the numbers, I didn’t realize how much the NCAA tournament rewarded major conference mediocrity. Over 40% of teams in the top-eight conferences made the NCAA tournament each season since 2011. To me, this seems to invalidate a significant portion of the regular season. In addition, when you let the riff-raff in, you can end up with a bad champion.

The way I see it, the FBS playoff needs to strike a balance between being egalitarian and preserving the importance of the regular season. If FBS used the same 20% ratio as DI basketball, that would give us a playoff field of about 24 teams (which is the size of the FCS playoff). That is probably a little too big. Similarly, if FBS used the 40% ratio of Power Five teams, that would give us a playoff field of about 24 Power Five teams. This would render the regular season pretty much useless. The tone deaf fans and coaches angry at star players for sitting out glorified exhibitions would lose their minds if a star player sat out a regular season game with a playoff bid already secured.

So what is an optimal size for a playoff bracket? I have two suggestions, and since I am a mid-major apologist, they both include accommodations for Group of Five teams.

Proposal # 1:
Eight-team field with automatic bids to each Power Five conference champion, an automatic bid to the highest ranked Group of Five team, and two at-large spots.

I’m open to altering this one slightly to eight at-large spots with a guaranteed spot to the highest ranked Group of Five team. The past few seasons, nearly every Power Five champion has at least been in the conversation for a playoff spot, but in cases like say the ACC in 2008, a Power Five conference champion may not necessarily merit a bid. In addition, removing the conference champion provision gives Notre Dame a fairer shake.

Proposal #2:
Sixteen-team field with automatic bids to each FBS conference (ten total) and six at-large spots.

This is my personal preference because it guarantees the Sun Belt and MAC at least have a theoretical chance at winning the national championship. It also virtually guarantees every top-ten teams makes the playoff as the Power Five conference champions would likely account for at least four of the top-ten teams. Of course, this is probably the most unrealistic option as this would require the national champion to play seventeen games which would keep the student athletes away from classes for too long (wink wink) and also require them to play a physically taxing and potentially debilitating sport even longer for free.

Playoff expansion is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Thankfully, the nature of football means expansion has its limits. The regular season will still matter, and even with an expanded bracket, we will probably never end up with a champion as bad as NC State or Villanova.