The CFP selection committee snub of undefeated ACC champ Florida State should cost UVA Athletics and its fellow ACC members in the area of $400,000, give or take.
FSU was left on the outside looking in for the final four-team playoff not because it lost a game, but because it didn’t win either of its final two impressively enough, following the loss of QB Jordan Travis to a season-ending broken leg in the 58-13 win over North Alabama on Nov. 18.
The snub will cost the ACC $6 million, which is the amount the CFP will pay out this year to conferences who have a program selected for the playoff field.
I’m not privy to the details of the new revenue-sharing agreement negotiated by ACC schools back in the spring. The talk from the spring ACC meetings was that the conference would move away from an equal distribution of postseason revenues to reward the programs that do the heavy lifting.
So, that being said, $6 million divided by 14 would come to around $428,000 per school, divided equally.
Assuming FSU would have gotten an extra turn at the buffet table, you’re still probably looking at around $400,000 per ACC school for the playoff berth for FSU.
As it stands, the ACC will get $4 million from the CFP because Florida State will play in the Orange Bowl, one of the New Year’s Six.
The conspiracy theorists who bemoan the big-money SEC getting the spot that should have gone to FSU, with Alabama jumping from eight in the final regular-season rankings all the way up to fourth, miss out on where the SEC will really make bank.
Georgia, Missouri and Ole Miss all received New Year’s Six invites.
The SEC, thus, gets the $6 million for ‘Bama and $12 million for UGA, Mizzou and Ole Miss.
The Big Ten will get the $6 million for #1 Michigan and then an additional $8 million for the NY6 invites to Ohio State and Penn State.
The ACC would have gotten $6 million for FSU being in the playoff and $4 million for Louisville going to the Orange Bowl.
Instead, we get the same amount that Conference USA gets because Liberty was the top Group of 5, getting the Flames an invite to the New Year’s Six.
The rich get richer.
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Chris Graham
