Column: Odds against college parity

By Tom Keegan     Sep 23, 2014

The NFL doesn’t rig the system to return the top and bottom teams toward the middle out of kindness. The shifting of the schedule difficulty from year to year based on teams’ performances, the salary cap, the order of the draft used in all sports all bring about parity.

Why the desire for parity? TV ratings. Parity means so many games go down to the wire, which means TV sets stay tuned to the channel, which means ratings soar, which means the cost of commercial time keeps rising.

I fear college football’s money potential could lead to a ratings-driven parity system. Although that would benefit Kansas, I’m not in favor of it.

Coaches recruit college football players, they don’t draft them in inverse order of the previous year’s finish. So scratch that. The Big 12 schedule stays the same every year, so that parity driver is out of the question.

I fear that when TV reaches the point that it runs college sports the way it does the professional leagues, everything changes.

Golf tournaments have gross and net standings. Football could adopt a system that blends the two. First, TV executives would need to convince the NCAA that instead of running from gambling, embrace it. Allow tout sheets to advertise on telecasts, billboards, scoreboards, even uniforms.

Next, award two victories and two losses for each game. One point goes to the team that wins outright, the other to the team that wins vs. the betting line. To prevent ties, award a half-point to the underdog in games for which the spread is a whole number.

The system still favors the better teams, but not by as much.

To picture it, consider that Texas is a 14-point favorite Saturday in Memorial Stadium vs. Kansas. Based on the rule that gives the underdog the half point, if Texas were to win the game 28-14, the Longhorns would get the point for outright winner, the Jayhawks the betting-line point. They both would be 1-1 in the Big 12 standings after one game.

Let’s say Kansas fell behind 28-0 early. Viewers would stay tuned to the game because the second chance at a victory would remain in play because the deficit actually wouldn’t be 28 points, rather 13.5 points. More viewers means higher commercial rates means more money.

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