Big 12 Adds Championship Game, It Sort of Makes Sense
By Ty Duffy
The Big 12 is adding a college football championship game in 2017. The conference will keep the round-robin schedule. It has not yet made a decision whether to move to two five-team divisions or to maintain one division.
A round-robin is the best competitive way to determine a conference champion. Big 12 teams play the same schedule. Head-to-head provides a clear tiebreaker. Of course, this is college football, which has its own special brand of reason and logic.
Quality wins will matter more than losses moving forward. A champion in the Big Ten, Pac 12, SEC, or ACC is likely adding an extra Top 25 win to its résumé at the end of the season. In some years, that may put the Big 12 champion at a disadvantage. Especially when said Big 12 champion doesn’t play anyone of note outside the conference.
The Big 12’s research firm thought a title game would give it slightly improved odds of reaching the playoff.
Adding a conference title game also means being able to sell a conference title game to TV networks. By one estimate, that could fetch $25 million to $35 million per year. That does not close the gap between the Big 12 and other conferences, but every little bit helps.