After falling one approval short last offseason, there is another push to seed more teams in the 24-team FCS playoff bracket.
The size of the field wouldn’t increase, but more seeds would result in less regionalization, more balanced matchups, and more transparency on who hosts in the first round.
Last year, the FCS playoff committee met in mid-May to review/discuss findings from the NCAA’s research regarding changes to the bracket structure. NCAA staff had been looking into what the change in cost would be to seed more teams. After review, the playoff committee recommended seeding the top 16 teams in the 24-team bracket.
The recommendation moved its way through the approval process, including getting the thumbs up from the Football Oversight Committee. However, it didn’t get final budget approval from the NCAA Division I Board of Directors Finance Committee. NCAA revenue was flat year-over-year, and multiple NCAA postseason tournaments didn’t see recommended changes due to this.
But there is increased optimism that more FCS playoff seeds will cross the finish line this year.
Why?
Because the revenue should be there now.
The NCAA reached a new eight-year agreement with ESPN worth $115 million annually to televise 40 college sports championships each year starting in the 2024 fall, including the FCS playoffs. The previous deal signed in 2011 was $34 million per year. That’s an $81 million annual increase in revenue to help support improved championship tournaments.
“Lots of support, but the recommendation is still working its way through the system,” a source told HERO Sports this week. “Hope to know more by April.”
The annual revenue increase from the new media deal aligns with one of the recommendations from the Division I Transformation Committee: Increase the championship budget to accommodate recommendations to expand championship access, ensure the highest level of bracket composition, and elevate the travel experience for student-athletes.
Another DI Transformation Committee recommendation was expanding bracket access for 25% of active Division I members.
Expanding the size of the FCS playoff bracket was discussed two years ago due to an increase in auto-bids after the ASUN and WAC formed. That desire cooled off when the ASUN-WAC and Big South-OVC merged as joint leagues, moving the bracket back to the usual 10 auto-bids and 14 at-large bids.
“If you look at 25% of FCS membership, you’re probably looking at a range of 30-36 teams in that field,” Eastern Kentucky director of athletics Matt Roan told HERO Sports last year. “As a committee, based on us representing the interests of our leagues and of people who care about FCS football, we think that 24 is the right number for us.”
Story continues below
How Would 16 Seeds In A 24-Team Bracket Look?
The current FCS playoff structure has been in place since the field expanded in 2013 — 24 teams with eight seeds. How the bracket is formed and the criteria the playoff committee needs to follow have been scrutinized for years.
The bracket is regionalized to save on travel costs. The NCAA does cover travel expenses in the FCS playoffs. There’s an online misconception that schools have to pay their own way to travel for playoff games.
An increase in seeded teams within the 24-team bracket would result in a more national tournament feel, more even matchups in the early rounds, and more transparency on who hosts.
In the current format, 16 unseeded teams are paired up in the first round based on regionalization, and the host team is determined by a combination of bid amount, revenue potential, facilities, athlete experience, and team performance. The first-round matchup winners are paired with seeds for second-round games based on regionalization. This means, in the current format, the 9th and 10th best teams could theoretically play each other in the first round while the 23rd and 24th best teams play each other. And the No. 1 seed could play the 9th-best team in the second round while the No. 8 seed could play the 23rd-best team.
Seeding 16 would eliminate that possibility and would be set up for a more national feel to the bracket. The format could look like:
- Seeds 1-8 get a first-round bye
- Seeds 9-16 host first-round games
- Seeds 9-16 host a team from a pool of the 8 remaining unseeded teams based on regionalization but avoiding regular-season rematches
- No. 1 seed plays the winner of the No. 16 vs. unseeded matchup
- No. 2 seed plays the winner of the No. 15 vs. unseeded matchup
- No. 8 seed plays the winner of the No. 9 vs. unseeded matchup
- And so on
While seeding all 24 teams would be great, that price tag may be too high. More seeds = less regionalization = more travel costs for the NCAA.
Frisco Future
Frisco, Texas, has hosted the FCS championship game since the 2010 season. The city beat out two other bidders at the time: Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Missoula, Montana. In 2019, the NCAA agreed to an extension to keep the championship in Frisco. There is an option for the FCS title game to stay in Frisco through the 2026 season (January 2027 game), an option that will very likely be used.
When Frisco got the extension, the championship wasn’t put out to bid. The game is up for bid beyond 2026.
Bids to host in the 2027 season (2028 game) and potentially beyond were due in early February.
Frisco is expected to put in another competitive bid to continue hosting. Other cities are said to be interested in hosting the FCS championship, which is estimated to bring in $9.9 million in direct economic impact ($16 million after taking indirect and induced spending into account). For comparison, the Frisco Bowl for the FBS is estimated to have a $1.9 million economic impact.
A source told HERO Sports that one city besides Frisco that has shown interest was Tampa Bay, Florida. A rep from Tampa Bay was in Frisco this year, witnessing a jam-packed Toyota Stadium as South Dakota State defeated Montana. USF’s new stadium was a part of the pitch.
Story continues below
HERO Sports has not been able to confirm what cities, or how many cities, submitted a bid. Although it’s a safe assumption that Frisco was one.
FCS fans have called out for cities like Las Vegas to host. But there needs to be mutual interest. The FCS championship is a niche event. It’s not a huge event. But it’s not a small event. There is a balance in what type of city you put it in and how big of a stadium you put it in. In all likelihood, the number of cities that submitted a bid can probably be counted on one hand. And Frisco is a 2023-SDSU-level odds-on favorite to continue hosting the game beyond 2026 in some fashion.
One idea floated out there from someone working within the bidding process is that if there is a strong interest and a strong bid from another city or cities, the game could move to a rotating schedule. Just as an example: two years in Frisco, one year in Tampa Bay, two years in Frisco, one year in another city.
Frisco expects to be synonymous with the FCS championship for many more years, though. FCS playoff committee members raved about the city back in January.
“When you think about a championship location, every FCS program’s goal to start the year is to get to Frisco. So it has that similar Omaha feel for baseball or Oklahoma City for softball,” 2023 FCS playoff committee vice chair and NDSU AD Matt Larsen said. “Having a place that invests and cares about the championship is huge. You’ve seen the growth here in the 14 years it’s been here. The growth, the investment, the renovation of this facility we’re in, a lot of that was driven by the FCS championship.”
“It truly feels like a championship event,” 2023 FCS playoff committee chair and Montana AD Kent Haslam said. “Frisco, the organizing committee, and the NCAA have really done a great job.”
TV Windows
As part of the new media deal between the NCAA and ESPN, the national championship game in Division I women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, women’s gymnastics, and the FCS are guaranteed to air on ABC each year.
The positive there, of course, is ABC is prime network television for the FCS. The negative is TV windows continue to shrink around the time the FCS title game is played with the College Football Playoff expanding and the NFL playing on Saturdays late in the season (which also comes with pregame shows dominating ESPN/ABC channels).
If the FCS title game is “stuck” on ABC (again, not a terrible thing) and can’t be moved to ESPN or ESPN2 due to a better TV window, the chances of the game remaining on an NFL Sunday are higher.
Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on ABC would run up against NFL pregame shows. Friday night on ABC would be very tough to bump any of that programming.
The championship has seen a decline in TV viewership in the last two seasons after moving off the usual 11 a.m. CT Saturdays on ESPN2 to 1 p.m. CT Sundays on ABC. This year’s game drew 1.04 million viewers while last year’s game had 1.07 million viewers, down from 1.32 million in the 2021 season’s game when it was Saturday on ESPN2.
To show how well the game can do on ABC with no competition, the 2019 season’s game was on ABC on a Saturday and drew 2.68 million viewers. James Madison’s TV market certainly helped in that too.
Even though viewership has decreased playing Sunday on ABC compared to Saturday on ESPN2, ESPN is said to be happy that it can fill its open Sunday ABC slot with a live sports event that can draw over 1 million viewers.
Haslam said the FCS championship will stick around the same early January weekend. What day specifically of the weekend will be determined by TV windows.
“On the football oversight committee, we moved to lock in this weekend regardless of what happens with the CFP and their championship,” Haslam said before the Montana-SDSU game. “So the first weekend after New Year’s is the slot we’re going with for the FCS title.”
