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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/puuma20 on 2024-03-09 20:20:05.
There’s been lots of recent discussion about playoff byes, but I think teams will quickly realize they prefer playing a home game. If it’s solely about winning a title, then getting a bye theoretically improves your chances as opposed to playing a lower-ranked team that you would still likely beat (though in the NFL we’ve seen instances where byes have been blamed for teams looking rusty). But it’s also about money, as some of the recent conference realignment moves show. If you look at the average team who would be in contention for a playoff bye (Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio St.), they’re forfeiting a ton of potential revenue by giving up a home playoff game. The average team in bye contention has at least 80,000 seats they could sell to a large, passionate fanbase willing to pay at minimum $150 for the worst seats in the house. That’s a minimum of $12 million in ticket sales alone, not including parking, concessions, team store purchases, etc. Here’s a more detailed breakdown for Georgia (the smallest stadium among the examples I listed above at about 92,000) using what I believe to be VERY conservative price estimates:
| Seating Section | Price | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 15,000 student section seats | $25 | $0.4 million |
| 25,000 “nosebleed” seats | $150 | $4.5 million |
| 25,000 “mid-tier” seats | $250 | $6.3 million |
| 25,000 “premium” seats | $400 | $10 million |
| 2,000 “suite” seats | $500 | $1 million |
That’s over $22 million on ticket sales alone. UGA athletics reported $203 million in annual revenue at last check. A playoff home game would account for more than 10% of their annual revenue. I guarantee you the Georgia athletic department thinks highly enough of their theoretically top 4 ranked football team to trust them to beat a 13th-16th ranked team at home with that type of financial windfall at stake. This is why playoff byes will be short-lived and expansion will continue.