Twelve more playoff games on campus is worth losing every conference title game

I'll take that trade every day of the week. The College Football Playoff made its 24-team field official Monday, and ESPN reported the price is the Power 4 conference championship games. What the sport gets back is 16 of 23 playoff games on campus, up from four. Twelve more home playoff games for a handful of neutral-site title games isn't a close call.

I played my share of games in big neutral domes. Half the upper deck empty, two fan bases split down the middle, a crowd that never got loud at the same time. The home games are the ones I still think about. You come out of the tunnel and the noise hits your shoulder pads before your cleats hit the grass. That's what this bracket hands out now. Seeds 1 through 8 get a bye and then a home game. Seeds 9 through 16 host a first-round game against 17 through 24. A lot more programs get to find out what that feels like in December.

The people who hate this aren't wrong about everything, and I'm not going to pretend they are. CFP executive director Rich Clark said himself that "many fans aren't in favor of expansion." ESPN's Nick Dawson, asked whether the regular season keeps its value, said "it's impossible to know for sure." When the network writing the check won't promise you the games still matter, you're allowed to be nervous.

And nobody should pretend this was about the kids. ESPN reported the network adds an average of $345 million a year for five years, but gets back about $140 million a year because it won't be airing the SEC, Big 12 and ACC title games anymore. Fox is expected to recover about $50 million for the Big Ten game. Follow the money and it walks right past those championship games without slowing down.

Here's where I land anyway. A conference title game was a big night with a trophy at the end. A home playoff game is your whole season on your own field. If I'm a lineman on the 14th-ranked team, I know which one I'd rather play, and it isn't close.

My worry is the schedule, and it's a real one. The new standard asks every Power 4 school to play at least 10 games against league opponents, other Power 4 teams or Notre Dame, and the committee won't give weight to more than one FCS win. Dawson put the rest on the schools and coaches to treat the regular season as 12 important games. That leaves a couple of Saturdays where an athletic director can still go shopping for a soft opponent, as long as he doesn't buy two from the FCS aisle.

So here's my ask for the 10 commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director who voted for this unanimously. You found the nerve to kill your own title games. Find enough to raise that floor to 11. If you won't, then the fans Clark says you listened to were right all along, and I'll owe them an apology for this column.

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