Is it fair for college teams to have more home games than away?

Question

Some years a team will get 8 home games to 4, a lot of the time it's 7-5. I understand how the conferences and individual schools come up with how many they get to play, but I find it hard to give much credit to teams who get to play so many games with their home-field advantage. And why is NCAAF the only major sport league in America that doesn't have an equal schedule of home and away games for the teams (that I know of)?

Answer 1

College basketball has some of the same issues (just look at Syracuse and whether they've EVER played a non-conference road game).

Money is the major factor. I don't have a huge problem with a 7-5 split, but 8-4 is ridiculous. Since most conferences play 8 conference games, that means NO non-conference road games. And it all has to do with your record, and trying to make a bowl, where whether you win or not is much more important than who you play. As long as small schools are willing to travel for the $$$ and there is no playoff system in place where strength-of-schedule plays a major role, you're going to see 8-4 splits, and 8-4 splits where most of those games are essentially unwatchable.

Answer 2

Money.

The conference schedule dictates (most of the time) that you play an equal amount of home and road games.

The rest of the games are scheduled at the school's leisure. If you're a bigger school, you can simply throw money at a smaller school to come to your place and play you.

This is why the Sun Belt, the MAC and the WAC (the lower half anyway) continue to exist.

Answer 3

Hey, Vanderbilt has 8 home games, and season tickets are still only $99.

But who needs home games when you can beat a #6 team at their place?

Answer 4

Simple economics, they can sell more tickets at the coliseum then they can at Stanford's home stadium.

Answer 5

No, but he who has the money makes the rules.